


All of it Lovely

by Ranni



Category: Avengers, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Anxiety, Brain Damage, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Captivity, Caregiver Fatigue, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Cults, Domestic Violence, Dubious Consent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Gen, Hurt Clint Barton, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Procedures, Medical Torture, Minor Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Clint Barton, Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Self Harm, Stockholm Syndrome, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, Trauma Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-10-31 02:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10889775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranni/pseuds/Ranni
Summary: Tony tells Anna he will stay with her and won't complain. Won't try to escape, won't try to fight her or anyone else. He'll do anything, as long as they don't do to him whatever it is that they have done to Clint.It won't be hard, he thinks, to get away from her. He's one of the smartest people in the world, and he'll figure it out, even if he has to construct an Iron Man suit from scratch and fly them out. They've been in tighter spots before and made it.They'll be fine in the end. Just fine.He tells himself that for the next two years.**or**Tony and Clint are held against their will by an absolutely crazy woman.





	1. Anna

  
"Hey, Stark, you have an admirer."

They've been at the technology expo for two days now, Tony going to marvel at good ideas and to poke fun at bad ones, Clint going on behalf of Shield, to keep an eye out for anything dangerous that may be under development.

"Well, of course I do, there's a lot about me to admire." Tony cranes his neck around and spots her. A petite woman with black hair and porcelain skin is watching him intently, and smiles beatifically when she notices him looking back.

"Yowza," Tony says approvingly under his breath. Clint rolls his eyes and wanders off as she makes her way over.

*******

"Clint! Hey, Clint!" Tony finally spots him in near one of the survival equipment booths, fiddling around with a pair of night vision goggles.

"What? We're getting some of these, by the way." He sets down the goggles and eyes a gillie suit speculatively. "And maybe one of those, too."

"Quit playing doomsday prepper and guess where I have scored us an invite." Clint ignores him effortlessly and keeps looking at the display. Tony bobs back and forth to stay in his eyeline. "Cliiiiiiint, _guess_!"

"No. It's probably an invite to something I'm going to hate."

"Bzzzzt, _wrong_! You remember the chick? With the hair? That's Anna Ford, _the_ Anna Ford, and she said she could take us to visit Haven."

He can see the wheels turn in Clint's head as he connects the names. "Haven...wait, do you mean the cult?"

Tony scoffs. "It's not a cult, silly Tweetie, it's a commune, and it's where a lot of top scientific minds, minus myself and Brucie of course, live. Super exclusive, visits by invite only. I've always wanted to see it. She's their guru, or something, and said she'll take us today if we wanted." Tony rubs his hands together with a grin. "And I _want_."

"I've heard of these guys. God's Chosen, right? They're a cult, Tony--a crazy, religious technological cult. When they speak in tongues they probably use binary. Instead of handling snakes to prove their faith they use computer cables." Clint smirks, then points to the night vision goggles. "How many of these come in a case?" he asks one of the attendants.

Tony rolls his eyes and pulls Clint away by the arm. "You're a laugh riot, Barton, and I sincerely appreciate every chance I get to play audience to your one man comedy tour. But back to the point--it's not a real cult. They're harmless. They're _scientists_. And you don't have to go, if you're gonna be a killjoy. Stay at the expo and buy shit, and I'll meet back up with you tomorrow."

"This sounds like one of those scenarios that ends with 'And he was never seen again'. No _way_ am I letting you go alone. They'd probably end up sacrificing you on an altar made out of computer servers and Iron Man parts." Clint crosses his arms stubbornly, then gives in and laughs.

Clint finds it funny, and Tony finds it harmless. Both would discover they were wrong.

*******

She tells them that no outside tech is allowed, and to leave their phones in the hotel. Clint doesn't like that, and he likes it even less when they drive up to the town a few hours later and there is a wall with guard towers around it.

"Hmm, how welcoming," he grumbles from the back seat.

"A lot of research facilities have security, Dodo-brains," Tony points out.

The town is attractive and quaint. All of the houses are in complementary colors, a telltale sign of carefully planned out development. There are parks and small shops and even a clock tower on the school. The largest building is a church in the center.

"We don't do much research in Haven itself," Anna says. Her voice is high pitched and girlish. "Most everyone works outside of the community and only come home in between long term projects. But their families are here. And of course the church."

"Well, of _course_ ," Clint agrees, widening his eyes and blinking with exaggerated innocence. 

Anna's smile dims just a fraction, then brightens again when she looks back toward Tony. "We do have a project at the hospital that you will be interested in. Apart from our devotion to God it is our most important work."

*******

Anna leaves them in a windowless, somewhat claustrophobic waiting room while she goes to collect their head scientist. Tony is excited to hear it is Dennis Weaver, one of the top neuroscientists in the world.

"I think Bruce knows that guy. Or used to know him. Anyway, I hope he's got something good going on, because otherwise this place is a bust." Tony walks around the room restlessly, taking in the bland wall art. "I imagined it was going to be something like one of those little towns where everyone is devoted to weaving or pottery, except with, you know, _science_. I thought it'd be an idea nexus, a conglomeration of awesome. What about _this_ place would ever make it VIP only? It makes me question the whole concept of VIP entirely."

Clint shoots him a dirty look. "Tony, if I find out this whole side-trip is just part of some quest to get into that chick's pants, I'm going to be super pissed."

Tony scoffs. "I'm already dating perfection personified. Why would I be interested in _her_? You, however, might consider making a move. You're single and she's gorgeous."

"She's not my type." Clint picks up a magazine with toothsome pop singer on the cover and frowns at it.

"Are you kidding? That skin and all that long, black hair...she looks like Snow White, for God's sake. Anna Ford is _everybody's_ type. What's your problem?

"I don't like her." Clint rolls up the magazine and launches it neatly into the trashcan across the room. "She's a twist. Probably a good characteristic for her, being a cult leader and all."

"A twist?"

"Someone who likes to play mind games and generally fuck with people."

"You don't even know her. Why would you say that?"

"She _reeks_ of it. I've dealt with enough of them in my life to spot one. "

Tony laughs. "You know that term describes every person that works for Shield, right? Including yourself. It must be a lonely life, being such a suspicious bastard."

*******

His suspicion is proven founded when Tony finally gets bored of waiting and tries to leave the room, only to find they've been locked inside. He pounds on the door, yelling, until Anna appears on the other side.

"You accidentally locked us in here," Tony says through the glass window with a grin, trying to play it casual.

She smiles back sweetly. "We want you to stay. It'll be so good."

"This has to be a mistake. We'd like to leave now."

"We want you to stay," Anna repeats. "Well, we want _you_ to stay," she amends, looking pointedly at Tony.

Clint pushes Tony roughly aside from the window to glare at her. "Out. Now. Let us out."

She smiles again, and she doesn't look as pretty now, not at all the doe-eyed sweetling that had brought them here, but instead someone crafty and calculating. "I don't think so. I think I like you better in there."

"You can let us out of here right now and we can chalk all of this up to a big cultural misunderstanding," Clint says. "Or you can double down and try to keep us, and then it's gonna get ugly. And I'm talking 'pull out your skeleton and dance around in your skin' kind of ugly. The amount of shits I do not give about taking your life could fill the Grand Fucking Canyon."

Anna narrows her eyes at him. "I could make you love me," she says, and there is something dark about her eyes that contrasts with her saccharine voice. "You could be made to beg to lick food from my hand, if that's what I wanted."

"Lady, you're a goddamned screwball."

"Fine," she says, dropping the good girl act altogether, her voice suddenly sharper and lower in pitch. "I think the first thing I'll have them fix about you is that filthy mouth of yours. I've read about you, about the things you've done. You're a _terrible_ person. You could be executed right now and the world would be better for it. But instead I'm going to be generous. You're soul sick, but luckily for you, we've found the cure. I'm going to give it to you. And when it's done, when you come back, you'll be different. You'll be happy. You'll be my own little ray of sunshine."

*******

She disappears from the door and Tony turns to Clint, eyebrows raised. "Okay, that speech was pretty fucking creepy, as far as monologues go."

"Come visit Haven," Clint sneers, gesturing angrily. "Meet some scientists, buy a funny T-shirt, take a picture next to their giant ugly ass church. It'll be a blast, at least until they take you hostage. Tony Stark, you _motherfucker_!"

"How the hell was _I_ supposed to know this would happen? Snow White looks as innocuous as they come."

"You do realize that 'innocuous' is how the unwitting co-workers and neighbors later describe every serial killer _ever_ , right?" Clint is still pissed, but plops down on the couch with a rueful chuckle and scrubs his face with his hands. "Oh, brother," he sighs. "This is going to be freaking embarrassing, if we can't get out and Natasha has to come get us."

"And boy, does Anna hate you," Tony teases, sitting down beside him. "Me, she totally digs. But you...she wants to chew up your nuts and spit them out." He grins and elbows Clint, who laughs. "Oooh, she's gonna put the whammy on you, Tweetie, gonna hurt you _baaaad_."

A few minutes later, when some sort gas is pumped in and both collapse helplessly to the floor it doesn't seem as funny. They drag Clint out and leave Tony behind.

*******

They literally toss him back in the room, and Tony figures the orderlies are a little angry about the way Clint had spoken to their tiny spiritual leader. He lays bonelessly on the floor, too weak to move, until Tony drags him up onto the couch.

"What did they do to you?" he asks.

"I don't know," Clint says shakily. His nose keeps leaking blood and his balance is so poor that he cannot even sit up. "I can't remember."

*******

They come for him again a few hours later. Tony tries to stop them, but two of them hold him back while the others drag Clint away by his ankles, making sure to crack his head on the door on the way out. Anna Ford watches and smiles.

"It will be worth it, in the end. You'll see." She's returned to her syrupy sweet voice and affect, and stretches her hand toward Tony. "But it doesn't have to be that way for you. You're smart, and you're _good_ , I could see that from the start. You'll be able to understand what we are trying to do. We wouldn't have to change anything about you. You can live with me and we can be together. You liked me when we met, I know you did."

"Lady, I've got a partner. Her name is Pepper, and she's a goddess, and you're just a pseudo-scientific religious wackadoo. I'm sure you're great once people get to know you, but...it's never going to happen. Not _ever_."

She shrugs, looking unperturbed. "We'll see."

*******

They deposit Clint carelessly in again, bruised in random spots over his temple and neck with what look to be injection sites. Tony tries to check him over, tries to comfort him, but Clint just looks confused and keeps pushing his hands away.

"Clint," he says. "Clint B-B-Barton." He keeps repeating it endlessly, won't say anything else.

"Fuck," Tony whispers, his heart pounding. 

"Clint...Barton," he rasps again.

******

When they come the next morning, Anna is with them.

"Don't do it," Tony pleads as they haul Clint limply out.

"Do what?" she asks innocently.

"Whatever the hell you're going to do to him. Whatever the endgame of _this_ is."

"He'll be better off, in the end. He won't be so angry, won't remember all the horrible things that he has done before. He won't be _dead_. You can still have him--you can become friends all over again. It will all be so lovely."

"Please don't hurt him." He's begging and doesn't care.

"It will take him a little while to get better," she says, "and that's okay. We'll take care of him. But I'd prefer it if you didn't have to get treated also, because I don't want to have to wait for you. I mean, I _will_ , if I have to...but I'd prefer if we could just be happy _now_." Her cloying, babydoll voice is earnest.

"Anna. This is crazy. Whatever you're going to do, please do not do it."

She shrugs and turns to leave, then stops and looks back. "When he gets back and you see how he is, then think things over. Decide how you want things to be, and let me know. We can all be happy now, or we can be happy later...after it's your turn."

*******

They carry Clint back in. There are black bruises under both of his eyes, and blood trickles steadily out of his ear. One of the attendants wipes it away with a cloth and makes soothing noises. They lay him on the couch and for the first time they are not rough with him, but exceptionally tender. And Tony feels a stab of horror because he knows that they are gentle because it's finished, it's been done.

Clint has been cured.

"Clint?" He gets right in his friend's face and there is no recognition, no reaction, no anything. He snaps his fingers loudly. " _Clint_. Hawkeye? Tweetie Bird?" His voice breaks a little.

Clint just stares up at the ceiling and doesn't move. He doesn't respond when Tony talks to him, or later when they bring food and Tony tries to get him to eat or drink. He stays that way for two days and Tony knows that Clint will die if nothing changes, if they won't give him help.

But they will do nothing while they wait for Tony to choose.

*******

Tony tells Anna he will stay with her, he will be good and won't complain. He won't try to escape, won't fight her or anyone else. He'll do anything, as long as they don't do to him whatever it is that they have done to Clint.

He's terrified and so ashamed that she believes him.

He is moved from the hospital into her home, which is bright and spacious with a big yard that has a wall around it. She has them bring Clint, too, and Tony knows it's to keep him close, as a warning, as leverage against any bad behavior.

It won't be hard, he thinks. It won't be hard to get away from her and her shitty little cultish town. He's one of the smartest people in the world, and he'll figure it out, even if he has to construct an Iron Man suit from scratch and fly them out. He's been in tighter spots before and made it. He'll get them out, and then Bruce and Shield can fix whatever has happened to Clint.

They'll be fine in the end. Just fine.

He tells himself that for the next two years.

*******

Anna is happy. Happy that Tony is there, in her house, no matter what reason he had for agreeing to it. He's not sure why she really wants him around. She doesn't seem to be interested in his money or his tech, and usually those are the only reasons anyone is ever interested in him. She doesn't ask him to do anything but help take care of Clint and be nice to her. As far as psychological terror goes, Tony has experienced far worse, so he goes along with it. For now.

She seems to like Clint this way, as though she truly thinks he is better for it. She fusses over him like an overgrown child, and in some ways that isn't far from the truth. There is always a medical helper around because Clint cannot walk, talk, feed himself, or do much of anything else.

Tony certainly doesn't know how to help him, because he isn't even sure what has been done. He doesn't know if Clint has been lobotomized or received another kind of brain trauma, or if it is some sort of mental injury that has also manifested physically.

There is no internet, no computer, no phone. He's stuck in the house with people watching from the outside, and Anna on the inside. He is allowed to walk around in the backyard, but he can't see anything over the high wall that surrounds it. Even if he could get over the wall he'd have to get through the town outside, then the mountains beyond that. And he can't leave Clint behind.

It doesn't seem possible that they haven't been rescued yet. The people that live in Haven are smart, and have surely covered their tracks somehow, but the Avengers are tenacious, and Shield is resourceful. Tony is sure Steve would never give up the search, and that Natasha would scour the earth to find her best friend. They'll come. They have to.

Tony looks out of the windows a lot, watching the sky for a quinjet that never appears.

*******

People come every day to work on getting Clint able to sit up, then to stand, then walk. That they already have a plan in place, that they know exactly how to help him tells Tony that many people before him have also been cured. Clint gets fatigued easily and usually they put him back in bed afterwards and he sleeps most of the day. Sometimes he is able to sit on the couch, where he rests heavily against Tony. He leans against Anna, also, when she sits by him and smiles dully when she runs her hand through his hair.

As time passes and Clint slowly improves Tony takes over all care of him. He gets him dressed every morning, Clint fumbling with slow, clumsy hands, trying to help but really just getting in the way, making the process take even longer than if Tony just did it himself.

"We're gonna get you back to where you can do this all by yourself again," Tony tells him, tugging on his socks. "Then _you_ can pick out what you want to wear. Wouldn't that be nice? Or you could always tell me what you want. Can you try? Clint? Can you try to tell me?'

He just looks back with blank eyes and Tony wonders if Clint even has any idea who he is.

*******

Tony sleeps in her bed every night and has sex with her whenever she wants, tries to make it good. Tries to make her happy.

"I love you," she says, and he knows that she really believes that.

They're just words, he tells himself. Pepper won't mind if he says it, if he has to, as long as he doesn't really mean it.

*******

"A B C D..." Anna starts in a singsongy voice, then pauses and raises an expectant eyebrow.

"E," Clint says thickly. "E...E."

"That's good!" she chirps back. "So good! Now say 'E F G'. Can you say that, Sunshine?"

Tony clenches his jaw, hoping she won't notice. He hates it when she calls Clint that. He imagines smashing all her teeth in, envisioning how a toothless lisp would improve the sound of that stupid nickname.

"E...E....Ffffff."

"That's just lovely, sweetheart. You're doing so well!"

Tony wants to bury his face in his hands, but instead he smiles and sings the rest of the song with her.

*******

Clint starts to get a little better. He still doesn't say much, and what he does manage is slurred and usually monosyllabic. Tony thinks of his friend's formerly sharp tongue and sarcastic wit. Of him singing exaggeratedly soulful karaoke while Natasha laughed. Of how he tried, rather unsuccessfully, to cut down on his swearing for Steve's sake.

Tony feels like screaming, like tearing his hair out, but doesn't, because someone might see. The home care aides, the people that "drop in" unexpectedly, the guard outside the front gate--someone is always watching. He is supposed to be happy. He grins throughout the day until his face aches.

After they get Clint walking again he still struggles with fine motor skills, especially with using silverware. He manages pretty well at dinner one night and she cheers. Clint is pleased with her response and looks hopefully at Tony, so he makes a big fuss over it too. Anna smiles at them both affectionately and squeezes Clint's scrawny arm.

Tony thinks about how a few months ago that arm could've snaked around her neck and effortlessly broken it. He imagines them exchanging smiles over her dead body, Clint's grin that old combination of cocky and a little bitter, instead of the mindless one spread across his face now.

"Are you happy, Sunshine?" she asks Clint constantly.

"Yes," he always answers, and means it.

*******

She brushes her teeth and climbs in next to Tony. He spoons her from behind, just the way she likes. Her hair tickles his nose and smells like strawberry shampoo.

"I love you, sweetheart," she murmurs sleepily.

"I love you, too."

It sounds pretty natural now when he says it.

*******

Anna tells Tony they need to take Clint to the hospital for some tests. He knows now it is actually just a large clinic and not a true hospital--anyone that needs surgery or other real treatment has to go out of town--but it is big enough to take care of things like broken bones and stitches.

And curing soulsick people, of course. That's the house specialty.

Clint is excited to ride in Anna's car, which he and Tony rarely get to do, but grows quiet and anxious once they get to the hospital. He's been back here before, but the visits were during in the very early months after his procedure and Tony doesn't think Clint can remember those days very well.

Anna sticks to Tony's side like glue; doesn't like him near all the machines and computers. He knows he's lucky to have been allowed to come at all and doesn't try anything. It isn't worth the risk, because he _wants_ these tests to be done. Clint is beyond nervous, but gets into the MRI machine because Anna tells him to. Afterwards he is so shaken that he sobs against Tony, who holds him grimly and rocks him back and forth.

"Aww, poor little Sunshine," Anna says tenderly, patting his back. "It's over now." She's all sweetness, but Tony sees that little uptick of her mouth and grits his teeth. He thinks back to Anna and Clint glaring at one another on opposite sides of a locked door and knows that a large part of her gets a thrill out of seeing him this way.

"Yep, your job is all done," Dr. Weaver confirms, and taps the edge of a file folder against his other hand. "Pastor Ford, would you like to talk about the results?"

"Of course. Tony, why don't you take him to the waiting area while I meet with the doctor?"

 _Bitch_ , Tony thinks to himself. _Bitchbitchbitchbitchbitchbitch_. He wants to be there, wants to hear what the doctor will say about Clint's recovery so far, hear his prognosis. He wants to look at a copy of that brain scan, to see if he can figure out what they even did to his friend. Tony is frantic for information and Anna knows it.

But instead he says, "Okay," and they leave the room. Two orderlies just 'happen' to accompany them, sitting in nearby chairs.

 _She's a twist_ , he remembers Clint saying, what feels like a hundred years ago now. How right he had been. The woman is all about mind games and power plays, interspersed with huge doses of smothering affection.

"Let's go," Clint begs him, still teary eyed. "Let's go, huh?" He starts snapping his hands open and closed repeatedly in the way he does when he's getting really worked up.

"We will, as soon as Anna comes back out. Shhh, calm yourself down, buddy." Clint's tics drive Anna crazy, and the last thing Tony wants is her angry at him when he's already wound up this much.

Tony has gotten him mostly settled when she waltzes back out a half hour later with a cheerful "All done!" They pile into the car and drive home.

*******

She doesn't say anything about the results, and Tony knows better than to ask. Never in his entire life has he been a patient person, but he's gotten good at pretending to be one. He's much more thoughtful and measured in his approaches now. He reflects bitterly that, yeah, all these months spent cuddling up to a mind fucker while wiping his best friend's ass have really changed him for the better.

He waits until they are going to bed, when she's in her nightgown and brushing out her long black hair in front of the mirror. "Can you tell me what the doctor said about Clint?" It's all about the phrasing. Asking in such a way that doesn't show how desperate he is.

She knows, anyway. Anna puts down the brush with a sigh. "You remember how he was before? How violent?"

That's not the way Tony remembers Clint Barton at all. "Yes."

"Well, his treatment had to be a little more radical than usual, because he was _so_ sick. But the scans show that he's all healed up now, and that's good."

He waits.

"Dr. Weaver thinks he can still improve, get a quite a bit better than he is now. But he's not going to ever be able to live by himself." She bites her lip and looks almost regretful. "Do you understand what I mean?"

Oh yeah, Tony understands perfectly, having spent the last six months day in and day out with Clint, understands probably better than either she or the doctor does. Still, it hurts to hear it put so definitively, and everything seems too loud and bright and far away as he manages to choke out, "That's okay. He lives here with us."

"That's right," she says happily. "We're a family."

*******

Time ticks by, and he doesn't think as much about leaving. That idea seems so remote now, an impossible dream. The days are long and hazy with monotony.

He gets up, kisses Anna, makes everyone breakfast. He and Clint wave goodbye to her and she goes about her business, sometimes tooling around visiting parishioners, sometimes leaving to do whatever it is she does outside of town. Tony has no idea what she gets up to.

He spends the day prodding Clint through physical therapy exercises and working with him on relearning everything from toothbrushing to writing his name. He cleans up around the house and makes lunch. Tony doesn't give a damn about food anymore, and Clint needs something easy. They eat a lot of macaroni and cheese, endless bowls of spaghetti. Tony wishes there was a television or computer so he could stare at something and not think for awhile. Instead he reads and rereads books and helps Clint struggle through the easiest selections from the town library's suspiciously well-stocked remedial section.

On church days--and there are far too many of those littered throughout the week for his taste--Tony wrangles Clint into a button down shirt and a tie, because Anna wants her family to look nice. The word turns Tony's stomach whenever she says it. He and Clint sit in the front row with their ties and their smiles and listen to their tormentor stand in the pulpit and drone on about God, science, progress, and togetherness.

Tony imagines her with her eyes torn out, with a Glasgow smile, with her head wrenched around backwards. He thinks about how he'd like to cut her legs off at the knee and watch her try to crawl away as he follows behind.

"Let us go forth," Anna says at the end of the service, "and do great things with love, together."

"Amen," Tony says solemnly.

*******

He's much stronger now, but Tony still has to help Clint in the shower--he's fallen in there more than once and also does a crappy job of rinsing the shampoo out of his hair--and one day puts his finger to a star shaped scar on Clint's upper chest. "You remember how you got this?" he asks.

Clint cranes his neck awkwardly to see it. "I....fell down?" he guesses.

"Yeah, you fell down right onto a bullet." Tony rolls his eyes. "No, someone shot you there, before I ever met you. Back when you were a badass."

"Oh." Clint looks disturbed, touches the scar with his own clumsy fingers. "I'm sorry," he says, and Tony winces because he knows Clint doesn't even mean to apologize, that it's just become his go-to answer when he doesn't know the right thing to say. "I guess that...hurt?" he adds, turning it into a question.

"I'm sure it did." Tony turns off the water with a weary sigh and offers a steadying hand while Clint steps out.

"It's okay," Clint tells him with a smile. "It doesn't hurt anymore."

*******

Sometimes Anna has people bring things to the house that they need fixed. Microwaves. Televisions. Lawn mowers. Everyone is pleased and grateful for his help, and no one ever asks why their pastor's partner never leaves the house beyond going to church. He figures that their lack of questioning is what led them to end up somewhere like Haven in the first place, what keeps them there.

No one ever brings a phone or a computer for him to look at, and that's either by some amazing town-wide luck, or by her design.

Tony draws pictures sometimes. Clint works on writing a shaky alphabet with one hand and weakly snapping his fingers repeatedly with the other. Tony sits beside him and draws pictures of Anna on fire, Anna hit by a car, Anna crushed dead under Thor's hammer.

One day he writes a hymn, throws in every trite platitude he has ever heard, makes up a few of his own, then adds a sprinkling of religion and woo on top for good measure. He puts it to the tune of "Love in an Elevator" but changes up the tempo so that it is less recognizable. Anna loves it, and whenever they sing it at church services Tony has to bite his cheek to keep from laughing.

He doesn't search the skies for quinjets anymore.

*******

Anna tells him that one of the scientists' children, a teenager, had been cured earlier that afternoon.

"Oh," he says. "Wow."

"It's good that he's so young," she says. "He'll recover faster and better than Sunshine, and have a long, happy life to look forward to."

Tony hopes he never runs into that kid and has to see him looking dead eyed and broken the way Clint had, but between town events and church three times a week he knows that he probably will.

*******

"It's a new time, for a new start...with the...right way..." Clint trails off.

"To a..." Tony prompts.

"To...for a...heart." Clint already knows he's gotten it wrong, and that makes him stumble over the words even more.

Anna slams her book onto the table, making them jump. She has been pissed about something all day; Tony has no idea what. It's nice to see Anna's true face come out every once in awhile, to remind him who he is really dealing with. He prefers her this way--au natural.

"How can you not know it _yet_?" she screeches. "We sing that song at Every. Single. Service. How can you not know it by now, you stupid shit?"

"I'm sorry," he pleads. "I'm sorry, Anna."

"You can take your I'm sorrys and shove them up your--" She sees his hand start to tic and her eyes bulge. "CLINT! If you start up that goddamned twitching again I'm going to lose my fucking mind!"

 _That_ _ship_ _has_ _long_ _since_ _sailed_ , Tony thinks grimly and grabs Clint by the arm and pulls him toward the back door. "I'll take him out, Anna. We'll go sit outside for awhile."

They sit on the back porch swing and Tony rocks them back and forth while Clint wrings his hands and looks miserable.

"It'll be okay, buddy," Tony tells him. And it will be. By the time they go inside again Anna's anger will have burned off and she'll be back to her syrupy self. She won't ever apologize, but she'll fawn all over Clint the rest of the day and he'll be relieved and grateful.

 _Crazy_ _bitch_ , Tony seethes silently. _I hate you, you mean, crazy bitch_.

He would love nothing better than to storm back into the house and stab her to death, and would do it in a heartbeat if he wouldn't be lobotomized by her fucking cult two minutes later. He would risk everything and try to escape, if not for Clint. But Clint can barely walk a straight line through their backyard, much less make an escape attempt through the mountains, and Tony can't leave him behind, especially when he has already suffered so much.

Clint is Anna's hostage to fortune, her perfect trump card.

He decides if the team ever does show up to rescue them, he'll let Natasha take care of her. She would probably insist on it, anyway, after she sees what's been done to her partner. Anna versus the Black Widow--now that is something he would really enjoy seeing. Tony smiles and lets the fantasy play out in his head while he swings them back and forth, back and forth.

*******

He misses real conversations. He wants to talk about things that are not God's Chosen, not Anna, is not God's Plan or The Great Work. The people around town are vapid and cheerful, and don't talk to him much outside of church events, probably by Anna's direction. He can talk to Clint, and does, all the time, but that isn't particularly stimulating. He feels like they have more of a parent/child relationship now instead of the evenly yoked friendship they used to share.

He misses music. He misses playing music so loudly that he can feel the drumbeat in his bones. He'd give his eyeteeth to hear some jazz, some rock and roll--he'd gladly listen to even the shittiest of pop songs if it meant hearing something different.

He misses building, creating. He misses exchanging ideas back and forth with Bruce, or even with JARVIS. He feels like he's losing his intelligence, his wit. He dreams of all the things he always planned to build when he "had time". Now he has endless time, and nothing to create.

He misses Pepper.

Sometimes, having sex with Anna, his mind tries to go to her, to picture her instead, but it seems even more wrong, to bring an image of Pepper into that scenario. Instead he fantasizes about actresses, models, old flings, any pornographic image he has ever seen.

He thinks if they ever get out of here Pepper might forgive him. He hopes that she would. But he's afraid she might also hate him for what he's done, what he's had to do to keep himself from being cured and to keep Clint safe. Afraid she might question if he sometimes enjoyed it.

*******

Anna bakes a cake for Tony's birthday. It is chocolate and actually pretty good.

There are presents, and he is looking forward to the prospect of there being anything new added to this house that he is stuck in. She gives him a book of photographs of famous paintings, and seeing familiar images after so long in an artistic desert is a balm to a wound he had been unaware even existed. His gratitude is genuine, and she is radiant, happy because he is.

The good feeling doesn't last, because Clint's gift to him is a drawing that either she or one of her cronies has helped him make, and a card signed in uneven, childish letters. It is a brutal reminder not only of how his friend has been diminished from the agile fighter he had once been, but also that it was pretty Anna that made him this way. His clumsy drawing is a harsh contrast to the elegant art in the book, and Tony isn't sure if it is the most obtuse gesture Anna has ever coordinated or the cruelest. Knowing her, it is almost certainly the latter.

"What a nice picture, Clint," he makes himself say. "I just love it."

*******

He and Clint lay side by side on their stomachs on the floor of the living room, the art book open in front of them.

"This one is called 'The Kiss'" Tony points to the words beneath the painting. "The....Kiss. See here, where it says the name?"

"It's so pretty."

"And this one is 'Starry Night'," Tony tells him. "Do you remember seeing it before? Everyone has seen this one. Look, there's the moon." He taps the page.

"That's pretty, too."

He turns to the next painting. "This is "Girl with a Pearl Earring.' Look, there's her stupid earring." He sighs.

"That's pretty." Tony frowns a little in frustration and Clint, wanting to please him, adds, "That girl looks like Anna."

She doesn't, at all. Tony turns the page.

*******

Anna tells him to try out the men's group at the church, thinks he needs a social outlet besides their family. Tony could not give two shits about any of the guys at church, but he is sick to death of Anna, and could use a break from Clint as well. Things are a lot better since Clint has grown more capable of taking care of himself physically, but his general neediness and constant anxiety are wearing Tony right the hell out.

The men's group spends most of their meeting time doing landscaping on the church grounds, which, in retrospect, Tony should have totally seen coming. Still it is a treat to be anywhere that is not their house, though he has no doubts that several of these men have been tasked with keeping an eye on him. When they are done working and hanging out at the picnic tables afterwards, enjoying their water--it's always water for God's Chosen--some of the men get to talking. Tony picks up a few things, like how Anna's grandfather had started the whole movement, and how many of the families have been there since the beginning.

"And some are welcome additions, like you and Clint," a guy named Patrick says. "Everyone was so happy when you two moved in with Pastor Ford. I know you and Pastor are sweethearts, and he's your...brother?" No one can ever quite seem to figure out how Clint relates to Tony and Anna, and her strangely maternal attitude toward him confuses things further.

"No, he's a friend. We used to work together."

"He must've been really troubled, to need treatment before anyone could even meet him," one of the others says. "Kind of like Patrick's little lady." They all laugh knowingly, Patrick a little ruefully.

Tony looks up in surprise. "Wait, what? Your...wife? Your wife got cured?"

"Yeah," Patrick says casually. "She was always really unhappy, especially after our oldest was born. But after she got better we've had nothing but good years. She's been really sweet, and easy to be around. We've had two more kids since, and she didn't have any problems with them."

Tony thinks of Pepper, so smart, efficient, and wonderfully argumentative, and tries to imagine subjecting her to the cure. Tries to imagine getting her pregnant afterward, and leaving her with an infant if she was as confused as Clint seems to be most days.

He wishes he were Bruce Banner, wishes he could Hulk out and kill these bastards that speak so casually of such horrible things, laughing them off. These men are some of the world's brightest thinkers, and they choose to live in a crappy commune and take direction from a raving madwoman.

The next time the men's group meets Tony tells Anna he prefers to be at home instead, and she doesn't ask again.

*******

"Come on, buddy, let's do some work, alright?"

"Okay," he says agreeably. He looks a little nervous, because sometimes the questions Tony asks are hard, but he's getting better at remembering the things Tony wants him to. Most of the time, anyway.

Tony grabs his hand and pats it reassuringly. "You can do it. We'll just do names today. Ready? Okay, what is Captain America's real name?"

"Steve." Clint smiles, glad the easiest one is first.

"The Hulk?"

"Br-ruce." He stumbles a little, but it's good enough.

"Our Norse-god-wannabe alien bro?"

"Thor," Clint says determinedly, but his smile disappears, because now all the easy names are gone.

Tony knows what he's thinking and squeezes his hand. "Black Widow?"

"Na-Natsh...Sh-sh-sh" Her name is difficult for him; too many syllables and he gets tripped up by the t and sh being so close together. He bites his lip in frustration, hard enough to draw blood. Tony sighs and wipes it away with a tissue from his pocket.

"No big deal," he says mildly, though he actually feels like screaming. "Na-ta-sha. Split it up that way. Keep practicing; you need to be able to say it, or she's gonna be pissed when she comes and you can't greet her properly."

"Her name is so long. I bet she would like a shorter name."

"You used to call her Nat, sometimes," Tony tells him. Clint was the only one that could ever get away with nicknaming the Black Widow.

Clint makes a surprised noise. "She had...red hair," he says suddenly, then looks up fearfully when Tony's grip on his fingers turns bone-crushing.

"Yes! And, she _has_  red hair. She still out there, still around. You remembered her a little, huh? That's great." Tony relaxes his grip and Clint pulls his hand away quickly. "We're going to see her again, you know. We'll see them all again, and be together like we were before."

"I don't remember them," Clint says fretfully and starts snapping his hands open and closed, holding them under the table, hoping Tony won't see. "And they might not like me anymore."

"They're your best friends. You're still Clint Barton. They'll still like you even if you're a little different."

Clint looks doubtful. "I don't think they will. _You_ don't."

"Of course I do, buddy," Tony says tiredly. "Of course I do."

*******

They've been here a year now.


	2. Tony

*******

"O Christmas Tree," Tony sings in his best baritone while he finishes stringing up the lights, "O Christmas Tree...something something Christmas Tree!" Clint gives him a questioning look and Tony winks. "What, you think you're the only person that can't remember the words to a song now and then?"

Clint grins happily and goes back to threading hooks onto ornaments. It's fine motor work, but he's doing surprisingly well with it. That, more than anything, gets Tony into the holiday spirit. "I think I've heard that song," Clint says. "Is there another one that goes 'la la la la la'?"

Tony and Anna exchange surprised looks. "That's 'Deck the Halls', Sunshine," she says. "That's a fun one to sing. Here, why don't you two hang some of these ornaments up and I'll finish putting hooks on the rest?"

Tony is trying to go with it, trying to let himself drink down a good time without adding chaser of guilt. It feels great to be doing something normal, something familiar, and even Anna has been playing nice; they've been having a lot peaceful days lately. Last Christmas had passed with a newly cured Clint drooling and unable to walk. This one wil be an improvement over that, no matter what happens.

"Spread them out a little bit, buddy, don't put them all in one spot. Put some over here, too, it's looking pretty lonely."

"Okay."

"What do you guys want for Christmas?" Anna asks. She holds up an angel ornament and lets it spin lazily on the hook, admiring it. "If you could have anything you wanted, what would you ask for?"

Tony thinks of all the things he wants.

Their freedom. Clint back to the way he used to be. Pepper in his arms instead of Anna. His real friends instead of the drones from church. A jet to fly them out of Haven, and a firebomb to drop on the place afterwards.

"I would ask for ice cream," Clint says.

Two Christmases ago Tony had given Clint a bullet proof vest and a flamethrower, both intended only somewhat ironically. Clint had disappeared with Natasha and returned a few hours later, the both of them singed, minus their shoes, and delighted as hell. Now he can't remember anything he likes more than ice cream.

"What do _you_ want for Christmas, love?" Tony asks her.

Anna smiles at him. "A baby."

*******

"Alright, what's this?" Tony finishes his sketch and turns the paper to face Clint.

"A train," he says immediately, and Tony smiles.

Everyone in Haven walks or rides a bike; there are barely any cars and certainly no trains. Clint's recognition of it supports Tony's hopeful theory that his friend still has a lot of knowledge and memories from before; they are just difficult for him to access. Whatever they did to him was cruel and catastrophic, but maybe he can still come back from it, in time. He's already come so far. Maybe he can get a little farther.

"That's good! Okay, how about this?" He sketches an animal but Clint frowns uncertainly. His fingers start twitching until Tony puts a calming hand on his wrist. "Shh, don't start that. Here's a hint, okay? Moooo! Moooo!" He makes the sound loud and exaggerated.

Clint laughs and Tony joins in. "A cow. A cow, right?"

"Right. It's a cow. A very poorly drawn cow. Ready for another one?" Tony hesitates, then draws a bow and arrow. He turns the paper toward Clint, whose smile vanishes instantly.

"Robin...Hood," he says finally, with difficulty, looking unhappy and nervous. He glances around, as if to make sure they are alone, but of course they are. Tony is trustworthy now, and Clint is cured. No one watches them at home anymore.

"You're on the right track--that's a bow, and this is an arrow. Do you remember using a bow like this?"

"No."

"You were the best at it, better than Robin Hood. You could hit any target; you never missed. You really don't remember that?"

" _No_." But now Clint is beyond distressed, and he stands up quickly, knocking into the table with his hip, sending a few pencils rolling off the edge.

"Hey, hey," Tony says soothingly, grabbing for his arm. "Don't get upset; we can be done drawing. It's okay. We can work on writing numbers instead, would you like that?"

He can tell Clint doesn't want to, not at all, but also knows he'll do it. Whatever the cure was, it had driven most of the argumentativeness right out of him. Tony misses hearing it--when it came to endless bitching, Hawkeye had been the grand master.

Clint sits back down, eyes darting anxiously.

"Good, good job," Tony says approvingly. "That's really...lovely." He hates using her words, but Clint relaxes visibly upon hearing them. "Okay, here's a pencil...write out these numbers. Nine, zero, two, three, three, nine." He repeats the sequence again and again while Clint scrawls it laboriously out.

He never recognizes it as his Shield ID number, and Tony doesn't tell him.

*******

He hopes that no baby will catch in her womb, that it won't happen, but of course it does.

And then things are worse. Anna has Clint to keep him in line, but soon she won't need him anymore. Now she has better leverage than Tony's friend. She has his child.

There is the slightest curve to her belly, and Tony can't help but run his hand along it. He cups the area where he imagines a tiny life is growing. Anna smiles at him. He thinks she looks pretty this way, glowy and happy and full of plans. He hates himself because his smile back isn't totally false.

*******

"Let's go for a walk and see the clock tower," Tony suggests. They are allowed to go that far now, it is in easy view of the guards that watch the perimeter. They keep everyone not Chosen out as well as they keep Anna's trophies in. "We need some vitamin D," he adds, grabbing their jackets out of the closet, "or we're gonna end up with rickets, and God knows you've got enough problems already."

"It's far," Clint says worriedly. "The big clock is so far away."

"It really isn't. We could walk there and back slow as molasses and it wouldn't even be lunchtime yet."

"That's a long time." Clint hates to leave the house, and would never go anywhere except for church and the backyard if Tony didn't make him. "Lunch is far away, too. We'll get so tired."

"Come on, buddy." Tony is trying to build up Clint's endurance, just in case. Just in case a miracle happens and they can hike out of there, escaping through the mountains like the goddamned Von Trapp family fleeing the Nazis. "I'll be with you, and if you get really tired we can rest somewhere before we start back. We need the exercise. Don't you want to be strong?"

"I guess so," Clint says unconvincingly, and sits on the floor to pull his sneakers on. He can tie the laces now, but they are often too loose and Tony usually needs to fix them.

*******

"We should get married," Tony suggests. "It doesn't feel right to have a baby when I'm not married to his mother." He smiles sheepishly. "I guess I'm just old fashioned."

He can imagine Pepper laughing hysterically at his act.

Anna, however, is delighted. "That would be lovely. I would be so happy to be married to you. I would be such a good wife."

"We could even go on a honeymoon, before Tony or Annie Junior is born. How about Paris? Paris in Spring, just the two of us, with a room overlooking the Eiffel Tower?"

Oh, what plans Tony has in store for her, if she'll just leave the compound with him.

But her eyes narrow and the excitement from his awkward proposal dims. "I can't leave our people. They need me. And what about Clint? He can't be alone that long."

"Melissa could stay with him. Or Jamie. Either one would take good care of him. As for everyone else, well, they can take care of _themselves_ for one lousy week. Don't we deserve some time for just us? How am I going to show my best girl the world if I can never get her out in it?"

Anna smiles, but there is still that faint wariness in her eyes. "Maybe," she says finally. "We'll see."

She says it in the way that really means 'no'.

*******

Anna's cousin John comes to visit with his wife and their young son. Clint can't quite wrap his head around the idea that John had lived in Haven, left, came back, and will leave again. He can't conceive of a world where people move about so freely. Tony finds it a little hard to remember as well.

John's wife Sara is visibly uncomfortable, sitting stiffly on the couch. Her smile is forced and her hand is limp when Tony shakes it, and she all but shudders when Clint does the same. He drops the handshake quickly, looking confused and embarrassed, and Tony feels a rush of anger on his behalf.

The boy, Shawn, is around three years old and completely obnoxious, bouncing around off the living room furniture and constantly stepping on everyone's feet or crashing into their knees.

"RAWR!" he roars, careening down the hallway, then back to where the adults sit making awkward small talk. He pauses in front of Tony and leans in close to his face and roars again. Tony barely resists the impulse to sweep the kid's legs out from under him.

Clint draws back anxiously every time the boy passes during his circuit of mayhem, his eyes darting constantly between the child and Anna. She doesn't say anything, but Tony can see that her mouth is set in the hard line that conveys her displeasure.

John must notice it, too. "Shawn, knock it off. He's not usually like this," he says apologetically. "He's been worked up lately because of that crap that has been all over the news."

"RAWR!!!" Shawn bellows again. "RAWR, I'm the Hulk!"

It takes every bit of self control he has ever had not to react, but Tony feels as though a bucket of cold water has been thrown on him. "What do you mean?" he asks, straining to make his voice casual, ignoring Anna's warning look. "We don't watch much TV around here."

"Oh, yeah, I guess not." John laughs awkwardly, and casts an uncomfortable look at his wife, who continues shooting him the eye daggers she's been throwing since the second they arrived. Tony has a feeling this will be the one and only time the woman agrees to a visit to her husband's hometown. "The Avengers had some sort of big brawl in South America. They saved a bunch of lives, praise God, but the fight is all the news talks about lately."

It is the first time in over a year that Tony has ever heard them mentioned, beyond weaving his own stories, trying to keep their names fresh in Clint's mind. It is exhilarating to know that they are still out there, still a team, kicking ass and making the world safe.

*******

The visit ends at last, John and his wife practically sprinting for the car with their brat in tow. Tony starts to set the living room to rights while Anna sits and watches, fuming. Clint stacks books back on the shelves, frowning at one with a torn cover.

"Our kid is going to be better behaved than that one," Tony observes, trying to lighten the mood. "If not, we're buying a straightjacket and a muzzle."

"I don't think Sara liked me," Clint says unhappily.

"No. She didn't." Anna jerks out of her seething reverie. "And why _would_ she? You acted ri-goddamned-diculous, the way you kept twitching around like a moron. How many times do I have to tell you to sit still, Clint Barton? Seriously, _how many times_?"

"I'm sorry." He cringes away when she stands up, but only out of habit; Anna rarely lays a hand on him. Words have always been her favorite way to hurt.

"You make everyone around you uncomfortable, being the way you are. You scared that little boy. I was embarrassed, you _embarrassed_ me in front of my cousin." Anna moves forward to stand chest to chest with Clint, and even though he's almost a full foot taller she seems to loom over him. "I think we might need to bring you back to Dr. Weaver, see if there's still something wrong with you. Maybe it's something that can be fixed." Her eyes glint with savage delight at the look of horror on his face. "He would _enjoy_ fixing you. And maybe, just maybe, he can make you into someone people can actually stand to be around."

Tony pulls Clint away roughly by the arm. "Go to your room," he says brusquely, and Clint wastes no time in doing so, Anna's eyes following his retreat. Tony glares at her. "Don't talk to him like that." It never goes well to argue with her, but this particular subject is a painful one for both him and Clint, and he can't help himself.

"How _dare_ you?" she demands incredulously. "So, what, you hear about your friends' exploits and decide to act like you're as tough as they are? As if you're their equal anymore. You are a fucking _joke_ , Tony."

He'd love nothing more than to snap her neck, if not for the repercussions they would face. There's also the minor detail of his child still growing inside of her. Tony clenches his teeth and goes back to cleaning up.

"And don't you start talking about _them_ again, either!" she continues. "Especially not to Clint. It's stupid enough for you to dwell on the things you'll never be again, but it's downright pathetic for him."

"The Avengers were one of the best things in my whole life. You don't get to take them away," Tony snaps, and pushes the coffee table back into place with unnecessary force. "Isn't it enough that I've kept my promise? I've stayed, all this time, never tried to run, taken care of Clint every goddamned second. You don't get to have anything else. If you want me to forget my old life you're gonna have to open up my brain and cut the memories out yourself. After all, it's what you do best."

Her eyes flash dangerously, and he knows that while part of her would love nothing more than to do just that, Anna has far too much fun with him the way he is. "You're my love, the father of my baby--I could never hurt you." Her voice regains its babydoll timbre, and she pats his cheek tenderly. "Anyway, it was never _you_ I had to hurt in the first place, now was it?"

Tony closes his eyes. He's so tired, tired of all this.

*******

He goes to Clint, who is huddled up in his closet, shaking like a leaf and clenching fists so tightly in an effort to keep them still that the knuckles are white. He flinches violently away when Tony touches him, then looks up fearfully. "I'm sorry."

"You're okay." Tony reaches out and takes Clint's hands, carefully peels the fingers away from the palms. There are bloody crescents where his nails have dug in. "You know she didn't mean that. She's just in a bad mood. You _know_ that's all it was." Clint's fingers are cramped from being held so tightly, and Tony rubs them gently, trying to get the muscles to relax into a more natural position.

"I don't want to go back to the hospital. Please, I don't want to."

"You won't. She was just trying to scare you, I promise. They can't do that to you again."

"You know that?" Clint's voice is strained, but he keeps it pitched low enough that Anna will not hear. Even in a panic his wariness of her temper is sky high. "You know that for _sure_?"

He doesn't. They probably _could_ do it again, whatever it was, scramble his brains around some more, turn him back into a whimpering, shuffling shell. But Tony had decided long ago that if they ever tried anything again he would take care of things. He would help Clint's body to follow his vanished mind. He won't ever let Clint go back to that.

"Come here, buddy." Tony pulls him into an embrace, rubbing circles onto his back while Clint buries his face between Tony's shoulder and neck. "I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you." 

After a long time Clint stops shaking and pulls away. "That little boy. He was...being the Hulk?"

"He was actually being a total turd and destroying our house, but, yes, he was also pretending to be the Hulk."

"I guess I always thought the Avengers were just one of your stories, but other people know them, too. You didn't make them up. They're _real_."

Tony has to work to swallow. "Yes, they are. The Avengers are real."

"Then why did they never come?"

God, there's the million dollar question, the one he has no answer for. Why didn't they ever come? His best guess is that they believe he and Clint are dead. Maybe they've buried empty coffins, shared some pretty speeches. Mourned. Moved on.

"I don't know," he says, and it comes out sadder than he intends. "They might still show up. It could still happen."

Clint nods dutifully, but the disbelief is written all over his face.

"Do you remember their names? Like I taught you?"

"Captain America. Thor. Hulk. Black Widow." He can say them all now easily. "And _you_." Clint nudges Tony and says, almost shyly, "Iron Man."

"And you. Hawkeye."

*******

Tony Stark and Anna Ford get married.

Her church is a sham, a mockery of real religion, so Tony has no problem going through with it.

It isn't a real marriage any more than this is a real life.

*******

Tony goes to speak at the town school, a large bright building with kids of all ages. Their parents are scientists and doctors, and they are all clever and curious. They have heard of Iron Man but, like everyone else, had never connected him to their Pastor's quiet, withdrawn husband. They ask questions about his inventions, the arc reactor, even a few about the Avengers. It's fun to talk to them, if a little depressing to realize that all these eager young minds are being raised in the confines of Haven.

When the headmaster prompts them to thank Tony for coming, they all chorus "Thank you, Mr. Ford!"

His skin crawls but he keeps smiling.

*******

They sit in the grass in the backyard. Tony watches the clouds and tells stories. Clint picks up a leaf and pulls it apart, bit by minuscule bit, then picks up a new leaf and repeats the process.

"Steve likes to draw. Once he made caricatures of all us, and included an extremely unflattering rendering of the beard I had at the time. I was not amused, but Steve laughed until he cried."

Clint laughs, too, then covers his mouth, as if he's not sure he should.

"No, it's okay," Tony assures him with a grin. "Everything was always in good fun. Bruce and I had an ongoing prank war, but to be perfectly honest the war was sometimes pretty one sided." He points to himself with an exaggerated smirk, and Clint laughs again. "He got me pretty good a few times, though. He programmed one of the bots to lay in wait and surprise me at a random point every time I took a shower. It got to the point where I was so on edge about it that I hated to shower at all, and when I did I was a nervous wreck of anticipation the whole time. God, Bruce was great."

 _Is_ great, Tony reminds himself sternly. Not _was_. Bruce _is_ great.

"Did I do anything funny? Did people like me, too?"

"Everyone liked you. You were always really mouthy, but good natured and hilarious. One of my favorite things that you did was the trick with the pennies. In every meeting we had with Shield you would bring pennies to flick through the slots of the overhead air vents whenever Hill and Fury weren't looking. Your record was forty-one cents. Your aim was positively mind blowing; none of the rest of us could have ever done that."

Tony grins, expecting Clint to laugh, but he doesn't. When he notices Tony watching him his mouth quirks up into a half smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "I can't do it either," he says softly, then drops the leaf he is holding to the ground. "Not anymore."

*******

It's Tony's birthday again, and Anna gives him a hat that says "World's Greatest Dad". She also gives him a CD player and a stack of classical music discs, and giggles when he gives her a delighted, theatrical smooch.

"We'll play these next to your stomach," he teases, "and Babycakes will end up being a classical violinist."

"Wouldn't that be so  _sweet_? Sunshine, wouldn't it be nice if the baby was a musician?"

Clint nods at her eagerly while Tony gloats over his CDs, delirious at the thought of any music in his life beyond church songs. Mozart, Beethoven, Bach...they aren't the people he longs for, but he welcomes them all the same.

"I didn't know it was your birthday until this morning," Clint tells him apologetically. "So I couldn't get you anything." No one points out that he doesn't have any money, anyway, and can't go anywhere to buy something even if he did. "Maybe you can just pretend this is a real card." He hands Tony a folded up piece of paper with a hopeful smile.

 _happy birthday tony from clint_ , he reads. Everything is spelled right and the letters are all legible and mostly the same size.

It's a pretty great day.

*******

One of the scientists at the clinic has a breakdown, at least what Anna considers to be one, and is hospitalized and cured. 

"David Goode," Tony tells Clint when they are safely back at home. He would never have mentioned it at all, but Clint had overheard some conversation at church after the Wednesday night service; everyone shocked and gossiping. "He has a wife and two little kids. Jesus, I wonder what they are going to do now?"

Clint is borderline hysterical over the whole thing. He doesn't remember the teenaged boy from last year; this is the first person cured since his own treatment, as far as he knows. "They shouldn't do that. It _hurts_. I thought we were all supposed to be nice to each other." He snaps his fingers frantically while occasionally pausing to swipe at a spot over his ear.

"Do you remember it?" Tony asks. He tries to grab Clint's hands to stop the repetitive movement, but Clint jerks them away, doesn't want to be held. "Do you remember what it was that they did?"

"No," Clint says, but won't meet his eyes.

Tony blinks in surprise, because he realizes it's a lie, and he didn't know that Clint could even tell one anymore. "It's probably good if you can't. Don't think about David, Clint. There isn't anything you can do for him."

But he's still reeling, still anxious, his hands moving even faster. Tony knows he's got to head Clint off before he really gets rocking and rolling, because if Anna comes home right now and sees him this way then things will go even more to hell. Tony grips Clint's shoulders firmly and makes him sit down on the couch. "Shhh, settle down. Shhh, come on, I've got you, and you're okay."

"Anna," Clint says.

"You want me to go get Anna?"

"No! I mean...Anna...Anna...is the one who says. Isn't that right? She's the one that decides."

"Who is cured?" Tony asks hesitantly. "Yes."

"She was...mad at me," he says slowly, and dread settles into Tony's stomach. The pain of realization is written all over Clint's face. "I was _me_ then, and she didn't like it. She hated the way I was, so she had them change me into someone that she liked better."

Tony has wanted to kill her for so long for all that she's done, and for all that she continues to do, but never has he wanted it more than he does at this moment.

"I'm sorry, Clint." Tony feels like weeping too as he reaches out and wipes away the tears that spill down his friend's cheeks. "Don't cry, buddy. Don't be sad."

"I'm not," Clint says, and his voice is unexpectedly indignant. "I'm... _mad_." He whispers the word, shocked to hear it come out of his own mouth. "And afraid."

"Don't be; I'll watch out for you. Haven't I always?"

"I'm not afraid for _me_." He looks up at Tony, his expressive eyes grim and serious. "What if someday she decides she doesn't like _you_? Or the baby?"

*******

Anna can tell something is off with Clint; he doesn't gaze at her with quite the same rapturous love anymore, and the change puts her ill at ease.

"He's jealous," Tony lies easily. "It's hard for him to see us so happy together when he doesn't have anyone."

"Aww, the poor thing," she trills, but there is still something skeptical in her eyes. Anna is crazy as hell, but not dumb. "Maybe we can find him a nice girlfriend someday--when he's better," she adds.

She always says that, as if all that Clint has wrong with him is a cold.

*******

The baby, according to the technician at hospital anyway, will be a girl. Anna is over the moon, and Tony is as well. He wishes she would be born in New York, in a proper hospital; that he could bring her home to a nursery in his tower, give her a bright room with a view of the world. He tries not to think about a small child growing up in this house, in this family, where no one is able to fly farther than the confines of a religious cult and a walled town.

"So, what do you think about the name Clotilde Anastasia?" he asks Clint. They're tossing a large rubber ball back and forth. Clint throws pretty well, but almost always misses his catches. "Too fussy? How about Hortencia Schadenfreude? I think that one sounds delicate and lyrical, yet strong. Daffodil Ozymandias? Evangeline Lillehammer?"

Clint laughs. "You pick terrible names. But you're joking, right?" He lobs the ball a little harder than usual, and it stings Tony's hands when he grabs it from the air.

"Yes, of course. Let's hear some suggestions from _you_ then, if you're so clever." He tosses the ball back underhand, gently, sighing when it sails perfectly through the space of Clint's waiting hands.

Clint thinks about it for a moment. "How about Laura? That's pretty. I think I had a friend named Laura." He picks up the ball.

"Bzzzzt, _wrong_! Your friend's name is Natasha."

"Yeah, well, maybe I had more than one friend and just didn't wanna tell _you_ about it." Clint throws the ball hard again, almost hitting Tony in the face, and smirks a little. He suddenly looks and sounds so much like his old self that Tony's breath catches.

"Well excuuuse me, Mr. Feistypants," he says with a grin, and tries not to be disappointed when Clint fumbles another slow catch.

Of course, it doesn't matter what names he and Clint like. Anna will pick whatever she wants anyway. But it's fun to dream a little.

*******

There are only two markers of time that matter to him anymore: everything that happened before she was in the world, and every moment after.

He holds her while Anna sleeps. Holds his perfect daughter, whose skin was all blotchy and red at first but now is as porcelain white as her mother's. Her black hair could easily have come from either one of them.

"It's not gonna be easy for you, Little Baby," he croons. "You've got an insane mama, a brain damaged uncle, and a fucking mess for a daddy. But you're gonna rise above it, Lucia Rose Stark. You're going to be terrifying and amazing and kick unquantifiable amounts of ass. And I'll be in your corner every step of the way."

*******

Maybe it's because she's tired from being up at night with the baby, or is so sure that Tony's devotion is genuine, or maybe she just cannot imagine a world where she doesn't always win, where people do not march exactly the way she pleases. It doesn't matter in the end. She makes a mistake, and that's all it takes, because he has been waiting, and has been for a long fucking time.

"Tony, one of the computers at the clinic is on the fritz, and no one can come look at it until Monday. I hate to ask, but they _need_ it, and..." she trails off meaningfully.

"You want me to go take a look?" he offers, careful to keep his voice neutral. He pats Lucy gently on the back, swaying with her a little. She still doesn't sleep through the night yet, and trying to get her to fall asleep feels like his new part time job.

"If you wouldn't mind."

All he needs is for her not to come along. "Of course not. Want to walk over with me, Clint? We can use the stroller and take Lucy with us, and let our Mama Bear have the house to herself, maybe take a nap."

"Oh my gosh, that sounds so lovely," Anna says, and part of him feels a little sorry for her. She really is tired.

It's a long walk to the hospital, all the way on the other end of town, but Clint doesn't protest. He has been working more determinedly on building his stamina up. "Can I push the stroller?"

"Sure, go and get it, would you?" Tony grabs the diaper bag, then kisses Anna on the cheek. "We'll take our time, so you can get a nice long break."

"You're just the sweetest man ever."

*******

It's sunny and warm and people are out enjoying the weather; they exchange greetings with everyone they come across. Tony tries to keep the excitement out of his face and act normally. He wants to snap at Clint to walk a bit faster, but the slow pace helps force a casualness Tony might not be able to maintain otherwise.

"No one knows what it's like to be a bad man, to be a sad man, behind your eyes," Clint sings to Lucy. The words aren't quite right, but the tune is, and Tony is happy and hopeful every time those snatches of old songs come back. "No one knows what's its like...to be a...sad..." Clint trails off, but for once doesn't seem to be upset to lose the train of thought, just sort of lets it go.

Tony is relieved. The last thing he wants now is a public freak out that would make them need to return home. Not today, of all days. They keep walking. The motion makes the baby fall asleep.

*******

They arrive and, unsurprisingly, Clint doesn't want to go inside. Tony assures him he doesn't have to, points to a bench near the sidewalk, and instructs him to stay put. He brings Lucy in with him, and hunts down Dr. Weaver, who looks rather out of place clad in his weekend clothes instead of a lab coat and stethoscope.

The computer isn't even broken, just riddled with spyware, probably from the good doctor or one of his minions downloading porn. But Tony doesn't tell Weaver that, instead clucks his tongue and says the computer is fried and will take awhile to fix.

"Maybe you can push the baby up and down the hall while I work on it," Tony suggests. "She'll wake up and cry if the stroller stops moving." _Get out of here, you old monster_ , he thinks. _Get out of here and let me work for real_.

Weaver falls for it, and Tony Stark is online at last.

It's been a little over two years. Maybe they haven't totally given up hope, but they probably aren't actively looking anymore. If they ever had been in the first place.

But JARVIS won't lose faith, won't despair, because it can't. The artificial intelligence has been made to persevere; JARVIS will search for Tony Stark forever.

He reaches out to his creation.

*******

They have to go back, because only the cult's queen, only Anna Ford, gets to have a backyard big enough for a Quinjet to land in. They also have to go back because Tony wants to see her again, wants to tell her himself. He wants to see the look on her face when she realizes she has lost everything and that they will be free of her. He feels like he's earned that.

They start the journey home, Tony pushing the stroller this time so they can move at a faster pace. Tony feels both exhilarated and somewhat dazed, barely able to believe it's all finally happening. Clint is glad to leave the hospital grounds, tired from all the walking they've already done but still keeping up fairly well.

"Can we have spaghetti for dinner?" he asks.

 _It's my favorite_ , Tony waits for him to add.

"It's my favorite."

"Yeah, I know it is," Tony says quietly. He clears his throat and steels himself. "I'm sorry, we can't have spaghetti for dinner tonight."

"Oh. Okay."

"And not tomorrow, either. Not at the house, at least."

Clint hears something in his voice. "Why not?" he asks apprehensively.

"Because our friends are finally coming. I don't know exactly when, but it will be today. I sent out a message to them on Dr. Weaver's computer." He glances at Clint to gauge his reaction, which, predictably, is one of worry.

He could have just let Clint be surprised when they showed up, but it didn't seem right. They have been in this together; they've been a team of their own for the last two years. He's always protected Clint, and refuses to make his life any more confusing and terrifying than it already is. He knows he has to explain it right, as honestly as possible but also in the way that will scare Clint the least.

"We won't be living in our house here ever again," Tony says. "We won't be with Anna anymore. Lucy will come with you and me, and we'll fly far away, like I've always told you we would. We'll live in a different place, with different people. Do you understand?"

It appears that he does, because he doesn't say anything for a long time. "But Lucy is Anna's baby. She'll want to keep her here."

"Anna isn't going to have a choice."

"Oh," Clint says quietly, then asks, with dread in his voice, "What's going to happen when we get home?"

"You're going to watch over Lucy, and I am going talk to Anna. Then the jet will come and we'll leave and never come back."

"I don't remember our friends," Clint tells him, as if somehow Tony has forgotten that. "I know all their names, and things they've done, but I don't know _them_. I don't know our old home. I know _here_."

"Anywhere is better than here. I know you don't remember. So you're just going to have to trust me on that, okay? Trust me the way you always have, and I'll take care of you, the way _I_ always have. I promise."

"If we are gone, where will Anna be?"

It's the question he doesn't want to answer, because Tony knows that, despite everything, Clint still loves her. "She'll be put someplace where she can't hurt anyone. She won't be in charge anymore. There won't be any more cures."

He looks back at Clint, who is frowning and quiet, and Tony realizes that for the first time in years he can't tell what his friend is thinking.

*******

He tells him to stay in the living room no matter what, and to leave the still sleeping Lucy strapped safely in her stroller.

"Tony," Clint says desperately, grabbing his shirt, not wanting him to leave, not wanting him to go talk to Anna and change their entire world. " _Tony_."

"It's going to be alright. Stay right here and watch the baby for me." Tony stands up and Clint lets go reluctantly, watching him walk away with unhappy eyes.

*******

She's still sleeping. She seems peaceful, and every bit the image of Snow White that she had looked the first day he had met her, years ago now. And, like Snow White, he wakes her up with a kiss.

"Hello, Wife."

"Mmm," she murmurs with a smile, and stretches. "You're back."

"Not really."

Even sleepy she catches his tone immediately. Anna Ford is one of the smartest people in a community full of them, and Tony reflects, not for the first time, that were she not both insane and cruel beyond measure, she would have been a hell of a partner.

"I'm here to tell you that we're leaving. The Avengers and Shield should be here shortly. I'm taking Clint and Lucy and we're leaving, you lousy bitch."

Her face darkens and  _there_ she is, there's the real Anna that capers behind that mask of sugary sweetness, the one that plots and snarls and whirls with hateful delight. The one that abducted him and then used his friend and unborn child to make him do whatever she wanted. The one that brutalized Clint and then made him love her, just as she had promised she would.

"You are not taking my baby, you bastard."

"Oh, but I _am._ Our daughter is going to grow up free and far away from here, and the three of us are gonna spend the rest of our lives deliriously happy and cursing your name."

Anna jumps out of the bed and tries to move past him, but he blocks her easily. "They're going to catch you," she promises darkly. "And they won't kill you. You know that. But you'll wish they had. In the end, you'll _beg_ for them to kill you, just like Clint did." Her grin is feral, all teeth. "Oh, Tony, he _begged_ for death. Clint begged and he screamed and I laughed right in his stupid face after they just--" she flutters her hand carelessly "--threw him away. Cut out everything that made him Clint Barton and threw him away like he was nothing, because that's what he was, and still is. _Nothing_. Human garbage. Just like you."

"Ohhhh, Anna, my love...I was going to let you rot in prison, but now I can't. Now I have to kill you, you hateful, manipulative bitch." For so long and in so many ways he has dreamed of her death, of killing her. For the time to have come at last--there can be no greater high in life than the one he feels right now. "And I _want_ to; I'm going to enjoy it, every single cry of pain. All of it will be so...fucking... _lovely_."

She knows that he means it, and there is some trepidation in her eyes, but Anna is still more furious than anything. She makes a fist and breaks the mirror she has sat in front of so many nights, brushing her long hair. She curls her hand around around a large piece, cutting her fingers and not caring. "I'd just _love_  to see you try, Tony."

She raises her weapon at the same moment he lunges toward her, opening up a long gash across his forearm as he punches her in the face, knocking her back against the wall.

Lucy screams from the other room, awakened from her nap by their shouting and letting everyone know she is angry as hell about it. The kid is a Stark, all right.

Anna's hand flies to her cheekbone in shock, then looks up at Tony, aware that for the first time she might not come out on top of a conflict between them. Her eyes widen in fear, but then immediately grow crafty again when she realizes that she still has one card left to play.

"Clint!" Anna screams. "Help me!"

Tony told him to stay in the living room, but there's no chance of that when he hears her calling. Clint tears into the room with huge, alarmed eyes, taking in the scene: Anna, her sweet mask firmly back in place, weeping and holding a shard of mirror defensively while Tony, fists clenched and head lowered, towers above her crouched form.

"He's going to kill me! You have to stop him! Help me!" She reaches out to Clint with her other hand, but he does not reach back. Instead he just stands there, his eyes darting back and forth between her and Tony.

"Sunshine! Please!"

He looks at her, pleading and weeping. Looks at Tony's angry eyes and bleeding arm. Lucy's screams fill the background.

"Sweetheart, please. You love me. Don't let Tony hurt me. Didn't I do everything for you? Didn't I give you everything you ever wanted?"

"No."

Tony doesn't think he has ever heard Clint sound sadder than he does at that moment.

Anna knows then that she has lost, and drops her disguise for the final time as she springs to her feet. She snarls at Tony but turns her weapon on Clint, because he's always been the weaker one, and hurting him has always been the most effective way to wound Tony. And she's so used to Clint cowering before her that Anna never sees it coming when he reacts to her attack with some old instinct, pivoting his upper body away while simultaneously snapping her knee with a savage kick. She screams in pain and he gasps in horror at what he has done.

The distraction is all Tony needs. He's on her the very moment she falls to the ground, grabbing the wrist of the hand that holds the glass shard and pushing it toward her, stabbing it deep into her throat, the flesh parting as easily as cream. Her eyes remain on him as she dies, shocked and scared and angry all at once.

*******

Tony binds his arm and picks up his crying daughter.

He leaves Anna in the bedroom; there's no point in doing anything with her body. Her people can come claim it, if they like, after he and Clint are gone, and do whatever they want with it. At least until the boom comes down upon their heads. And it will. Maybe they aren't all bad people in this town, but they were willfully blind at best, and complicit at worst, and they don't get to stay huddled in their little haven without consequences. Not anymore.

Clint sits in his closet with his arms wrapped around his knees and weeps inconsolably, rocking back and forth, his back thumping hard against the wall. Tony lets him; there's no Anna to yell about it anymore. Clint mourns the end of the only life he really remembers and the loss of one of the most important people in it, despairs over his role in hurting her, fears all the unknowns that are still to come. Tony checks on him a few times, sometimes stroking his hair but mostly leaves him be. Eventually, exhausted, he falls asleep right there on the floor, and Tony covers him up with a blanket.

The others could be minutes or hours away, but he knows they will come. There is no doubt in his mind. There is time to get things ready; no one outside knows yet what has taken place here--angry screams ringing from their house aren't anything unusual.

He feeds Lucy a bottle and puts her in the bouncer, where she bats at a toy and coos happily as he changes the bandage on his arm. The cut is deep, but has stopped bleeding and he's not too worried about it right now. He checks on Clint again. Peeks into his own bedroom and, yep, Anna's still dead in there.

He packs up Lucy's formula and bottles, and also some of her tiny outfits, in case she spits up on the way home and he needs to change her. He'll buy her all new clothes once they return to New York and burn these.

He goes back to Clint's room, and tries to be quiet as he opens drawers, gathers some of his clothing also. Unlike Lucy, Clint will remember this place, and will be comforted by whatever familiarity he can get for awhile. There isn't anything else worth taking; he doesn't have much to show for all the time he has lived here.

He thinks about it for a long time, then goes into the living room and pulls pictures out of frames. He and Anna, tired and happy, holding Lucy right after her birth. He and Anna and Clint sitting stiffly and smiling awkwardly for their church directory picture. A picture of Anna from her college years, her face young and achingly innocent.

Tony doesn't want any memories of her, but Lucy will. She deserves to be able to see a picture of her mother, to get a glimpse of the way their life had been. She'll want to know about it someday, even if the knowledge is horrible. And Tony will tell her when she asks, as best as he can.

*******

Tony puts his hands over Lucy's ears as the jet lands. He wears her in a carrier strapped across his chest, and wonders what they will think when they see there is a baby, when they realize that she is his.

Clint hides behind Tony, clutching the art book to his chest. Tony doesn't bother telling him that those pictures can be found anywhere, everywhere, outside of the compound. But Clint doesn't know about the internet or remember anything about museums; he believes that this book is the only place where those paintings exist, and he had refused to leave it behind. It had been one of their few good things.

"What are you doing?" Tony asks, and grabs for his hand. "Don't be afraid. Come here and stand beside me. Those are our friends. They love you, and they're taking us home now, to our real home. You and me and Baby Lucy."

"It's going to be alright," Clint frets, trying to make it a statement and not a question. "Nobody will be mad about what we did. Nothing bad is going to happen. All of it will be good and everyone will be so happy." He shifts his weight from foot to foot.

"Come on, buddy, you're okay." Tony pulls him closer. Clint clings to Tony's arm, leaning into him.

"Steve. Bruce. Thor. Natasha." He repeats their names, the way Tony had taught him. He says them now like a talisman against bad luck.

"That's right." Tony says the names with him as the hatch of the jet opens and familiar figures come running out. His heart races. "Steve. Bruce. Thor. Natasha."

"And you," Clint adds.

"And you, too."

*******

They fly away, just as Tony always promised they would. Nick Fury and Shield stay behind to take care of Anna, of Haven.

They had spent the last two years less than one hundred miles from where they had last been seen. As far as anyone knew, Clint Barton bought a case of night vision goggles--which were later delivered to the Tower and remain unopened to this day--and then he and Tony Stark had returned to their hotel and just vanished. The brief, furious search for them had ended abruptly two days later. Shield had been sent footage of men looking very much like Tony and Clint being executed at gunpoint in a warehouse. When the scene had been located there were no bodies, but there was blood that matched theirs, as well as brain matter plastered across a wall that perfectly matched the DNA profile of Clint Barton. The evidence pointing to their deaths had been more than compelling.

Everyone is quiet as they fly toward an uncertain future. Tony has waited so long to talk to all of them but now finds it unexpectedly hard to say anything. They don't push. Steve keeps looking back and forth between Clint and Tony in disbelief, pausing occasionally to include the baby. Thor stares fixedly out the window, the expression on his face shifting constantly between heartbroken and murderous. Natasha has eyes only for Clint, taking in his confusion and palpable terror, reading his face like a map, discovering the new landscape there.

Clint rests his head on Tony's shoulder and won't speak to anyone, though every once in awhile his eyes skip over and settle briefly on Natasha's red hair. Eventually she sits beside him and curls her fingers gently around his, and he does not pull away.

Tony feels the steady pressure of his daughter against his chest, her hummingbird heart beating against his. He doesn't ask about Pepper--can't bear to know yet if she'll be there when they arrive, if she has been waiting all this time. Maybe in a few minutes he'll ask, he thinks. Then tells himself the same thing a few minutes later.

Bruce squeezes his shoulder. "What do you need?"

"I've been telling Clint stories for years now. They always ended with you guys showing up and taking us away. Now it's my turn.  _I_ want to hear a story. Can you tell me one, Bruce? Can you tell me a story that has all of this happening, and somehow still ends happily?"

"I can," Bruce says. "But we’ll tell it together.”


	3. Clint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3 is dedicated to my dearest friend, Nasserine, who just wouldn't let it go, who was that perfect combination of annoying and encouraging until I finished it just to shut her the hell up. Only the best of friends pester each other to quite that level.

 *******  
Clint had been declared legally dead, but Tony has not, and Pepper is still running the company, so it is easier to step back into his life than it might've been. It's nice to have a little good luck for once.

His reunion with Pepper is tearful and joyous, but briefer than he had always imagined, because also present is a three month old baby as well as Clint, who watches them in appalled horror. Tony had never mentioned Pepper in all of his storytelling; too worried about Clint repeating anything about her to Anna and ruining his ruse as a happily devoted husband. As far as Clint knows, this morning everything had been normal, Tony and Anna had been happily married, and now, in the evening of that same day Anna is dead and Tony is kissing a blond stranger.

Tony ends the kiss early, apologetically, but she shakes her head and smiles tearfully.

"We'll figure it out," she whispers, their foreheads together. "You're _back_. We'll figure it out. We have lots of time."

Steve and Natasha assemble the crib they'd hastily purchased while Tony tries to coax Clint into undressing; he is so utterly exhausted at this point that he's not capable of much. Finally Tony just manhandles him into comfortable clothes and gets into bed alongside him, with Lucy in the crib close by. And so the first night passes with Tony not snuggled up to Pepper, as he had long dreamed, but next to Clint, who is finally done crying over Anna but still so terrified by all the changes that he wakes up over and over, disoriented.

It's all fairly horrible, but Tony imagines that tomorrow, surely, will be better.

*******  
The next morning Tony prepares breakfast with the groceries that one of his teammates had thought to have delivered at some point in the night and gives Lucy a bottle. _She_ seems content enough, at least, and Tony wonders if she misses Anna but quickly pushes the thought away. Clint wrings his hands and picks at his food until Tony scolds him, feeling a bit like a hypocrite as he also finds it difficult to eat. Eventually he throws his fork down and encourages Clint to get ready while he cleans up the kitchen. A few minutes later he realizes that he hasn't heard the shower running, and sighs when he finds Clint throwing up in the bathroom.

"You okay, buddy? Not feeling so great?" He rubs Clint's sweaty back as Lucy makes cooing noises at him. She makes them again, louder, delighted by the acoustics in the bathroom.

"I couldn't figure out how to turn on the water," Clint says miserably, burrowing his face into Tony's shoulder, his voice muffled, and Tony mentally kicks himself. Of _course_ he couldn't; the shower is different than the one from their house in Haven.

"That's my fault, I should've thought to show you how. It's no big deal, I'll help you."

Clint shakes his head against Tony. "I don't like this. I want to go home."

"This _is_ home."

"It's not. It's _not_ , though."

"It's going to be fine. Just give it a chance. We're gonna be fine."

*******

Nick Fury and the rest of the team show up about an hour later, just as Lucy goes down for a nap. They want to talk about what has happened, and Tony knows that this conversation is inevitable, but wishes it could happen out of Clint's earshot, because he's not ready to hear everything discussed this way, not yet. But he's also completely unwilling to let Tony out of his sight, growing more and more anxious as the living room fills with people, all perched awkwardly on couches and chairs. Natasha tries to sit beside him and he cringes away from her, while Fury watches and frowns.

"That's Nick," Tony tells him. "He's the director of SHIELD, and works with the Avengers. He used to be your boss, once upon a time. Does he look familiar?" Clint shakes his head rapidly and Tony pats him on the arm. "It's okay," he whispers. "I'm right here, and nothing bad is going happen."

That statement is immediately undermined when the first words out of Fury's mouth are "I'd like SHIELD's doctors to take a look at Barton as soon as possible."

And just like that the meeting is over before it even begins, everyone scattering as Clint turns into a gibbering mess at the prospect of doctors, of hospitals. It's not Fury's fault, there's no way he could know the result that sentence would have, but Tony is angry anyway because, God, he needs to be angry at _someone_ , and right now the man is an easy target. Steve leaves with Thor and Bruce but Natasha lingers behind, obviously wanting to comfort her friend and having no idea how.

"Everyone is gone," she soothes as the door swings shut, but Clint can't hear her over his own hyperventilated gasps, his fingers twisted into Tony's shirt. "Maybe we should--" she starts to say when Tony interrupts her angrily.

"I _know_ what to do for him, Natasha, thanks," he growls, rocking Clint back and forth, trying to get him to slow his breathing down. "I've been doing this for fucking _years_."

He expects her to get angry right back, but she isn't Anna. Natasha just looks at him inscrutably and starts murmuring quietly in Russian, and maybe something about it is familiar after all, because Clint calms down faster than Tony expects.

*******

That afternoon they meet again but this time do so in one of the board rooms while Natasha stays in the apartment with Clint and Lucy. She's more uncomfortable with the baby than anything else, but Clint is calm enough now to hold her, and having a task to focus on makes him slightly more willing to let Tony leave for awhile.

Tony tells them everything--every ugly, unhappy detail he can remember, and even recalls a few he had forgotten as they ask questions here and there. Everyone looks alternately sick and upset.

"I just can't understand why she did it," Steve says incredulously, "and how so many people could just go along with it."

"She did it because she _could_ ," Tony tells him matter of factly. "And they went along because it's what she wanted, and as long as it wasn't _them_ being messed with...well, I guess that just made everything okay. Goddamned _sheep_." They had known that Tony was a prisoner, that Clint had been mutilated. They had known that, and being the friendliest monsters in the whole world didn't change the fact that they did nothing.

"I still want Barton looked at," Fury points out. "I suppose he's not technically my agent anymore, at least until he gets declared officially alive again, but I'd like to know what they did to him, even if there's nothing that can be done."

"Later. Not right now. And you'll _never_ convince him to get into an imaging machine," Tony warns. "We'll have to put him completely out. He can't ever be told that it was done, because he'll absolutely lose his shit, and I won't have that. He's scared enough as it is." He glares at everyone, challenging them to disagree, but they only nod quickly, and Tony eases back a little. "There's still a medical suite here, right? If there's some diagnostic machine we don't already have--I'll just buy it. Make things easier."

"Tony," Bruce says sadly. "Tony, God, it's so horrible seeing him like that. How did you cope? Was it this bad, all of the time?"

"No," Tony says, and laughs ruefully. "It used to be worse."

*******

It seems like there are a million things to do, to decide, but thankfully Pepper arrives and offers to help. Clint gives her a dark look but doesn't leave, unwilling to be separated from Tony again. He keeps both hands clamped around Tony's elbow, which is annoying and excessively clingy behavior, even for Clint, but Tony tells himself it's still only their first full day home, and that things will get better soon.

They work out the things that Lucy will need, JARVIS ordering and coordinating deliveries, and Tony gives Clint a considering look. "You want make a list of your favorite books so we can have them here? Or you could read on a tablet. It lets you have a thousand books, all in one place." Clint shakes his head vehemently but Tony presses on. "We can also plunder your apartment for some stuff. I think you'd like all of your old clothes a lot."

"Nonononono," Clint moans miserably, and Tony quickly says, "It's okay, nevermind."

Pepper chews her lip as she watches the exchange, still trying to feel her way through the differences, around how both men have changed. She pauses before sliding another file folder over to Tony, suddenly unsure if it's a good time to bring the subject up. He raises a questioning eyebrow and she says hesitantly, "These are some possible live-in nannies. I wasn't sure if you were planning on coming back to the company, or to the team, but...?"

Tony blinks in surprise, the thought hadn't even occurred to him, but it makes sense. And he _wants_ those things, suddenly, wants them badly. Wants to do something as normal as work, wants to do something as exciting as save the world. "That's a good idea," he says, and Pepper looks relieved. "But we'll need to make sure we find someone who can also keep an eye on--" he trails off meaningfully, and she knows who he means.

Unfortunately, so does Clint.

"What?" he asks, horrified. " _What_? You're going to have a stranger watch Lucy? And _me_? I'm an adult; _I_ don't need a nanny."

This is something Tony doesn't ever see; Clint pissed off. He'd thought maybe Clint wouldn't even know what a nanny was, but of course he does--they're littered throughout the books that he has read, or that Tony has read aloud; there are as many nannies in those books as evil stepmothers, the role that Pepper will undoubtedly be assigned.

"It's not like that," Tony starts to say, but it's too late, and Pepper looks like she wants to disappear into the floor.

*******

A few days later Tony puts a sedative in Clint's food, and he feels a little guilty about that, but knows that in this instance honesty would be far more traumatic. Clint is completely out about thirty minutes later and doesn't even twitch when Bruce puts an IV in his hand to deliver the drugs that will keep him that way. Thor carries him downstairs, relishing the opportunity to do something helpful and to be close to Clint, who shies away from him completely otherwise.

They scan him up one way and down the other, take vials of blood for any test they can think of, Tony not wanting to waste the opportunity. Nick Fury arrives with one of SHIELD's neurologists, who pulls the scans up on the screen, the catch of his breath speaking volumes.

Tony isn't a doctor and knows far less about the human body than he really should, but even he can see the damage that had been done. He excuses himself quickly to a different room, hoping no one will hear him, but Bruce is there immediately and holds Tony silently while he weeps.

*******

They've been living in the Tower for about a month now, and things still don't feel completely normal, but Tony hasn't given up hope quite yet.

In most ways, it's just great to be back. The first time he puts on his Iron Man suit is restorative in a way Tony could have never imagined. When he takes flight he is almost able to pretend that he can leave all his problems and bad memories behind on the ground. He has to force himself to come back.

The Avengers had only been called out once during the month and he hadn't been ready to join them, but he thinks he might be the next time. All of the tech is as good as ever, but he hopes to get a little more practice in with the team if he can; they've been operating without him or Hawkeye for two years, and their reactions and strategies have adjusted and changed in the meantime.

He's also been throwing himself back into the operation of Stark Industries, catching up on all the developments and changes. He tries to avoid the media, who are desperate to know where he has been, who all hope to get the exclusive on his resurrection.

Lucy is babbling constantly--a sure sign of her Stark heritage, in Tony's proud opinion--and is rolling over and starting to push herself up onto her hands. She's a happy baby, content to be held by any of the new people in her life. Pepper is especially taken with her, to Tony's great relief.

But to say that Clint isn't handling things well is an understatement of massive proportions. The Tower is too big, Tony's apartment in it too big, the bedroom he put Clint in is too big. He spends most of the month hiding out in his closet, which is, predictably, _also_ too big.

He doesn't want to be around the team at all and will barely speak to anyone without massive prompting from Tony. He is nervous around Thor, who is huge and loud, and outright frightened of Bruce, which is a shame, since the two had been very close before. Tony had thought Clint would respond positively to Bruce's kind, quiet nature, but instead he can't relax around someone that appears normal, but could unexpectedly turn into something horrible that could hurt them all. It is maybe too reminiscent of Anna, who had been so sweet one moment only to turn inexplicably cruel the next.

Tony hires four full time nannies in order to have both days and nights covered, so he can work or take off with the Avengers without worry whenever the need arises. They coordinate their hours and time off between them in a way that seems to make everyone happy. There are even some periods where they overlap, which is nice, since one can take Lucy out while the other stays home with Clint, who has steadfastly refused to leave the Tower since the moment they arrived.

He'll come around, Tony thinks. It'll just take some time.

Any day now, things will start to get better.

*******

Tony knocks, but comes in without waiting for an answer and sits down on the floor next to him.

"I think you're right," he says without preamble, nudging Clint with his elbow, "this closet _is_ huge. I think it's actually as big as your old bedroom. Crap, maybe even _bigger_." He smiles to show it's a joke.

Clint doesn't answer, just leans into Tony, snapping his hands open and closed. He thinks the tics might be getting worse without Tony around to help him keep them somewhat in check, then supposes that it doesn't really matter anymore how bad they get.

"You have to quit hanging out in this closet, buddy. Okay? This is just getting ridiculous now. You have to come out of here."

"I don't want to," he says finally, and Tony sighs. Clint doesn't know how to tell him that everything out there is too much, too loud, too strange--a world with disembodied robot voices, strangers that know everything single thing about them, people that look normal on the outside but have monsters on the inside. It's not the life that Tony had always promised. All their dreams had come true, but it's all terrible instead of lovely.

But Tony seems to like everything just fine, and he's never around anymore. Clint knows that their life in Haven hadn't been good, but he misses it all the same, wishes they could go back. Tony doesn't want to hear things like that, because he had been unhappy there, unhappy the whole time, though he had been good at pretending otherwise. He had pretended to love Anna very convincingly, because she had believed it, and so had Clint. Now he knows it was all a lie.

He wonders if Tony lied about anything else.

Tony sighs again and rests his cheek against the top of Clint's head. "What can I _do_?" He sounds sad. "What can I do to make things better? Because this...this isn't good for you." He places one hand over both of Clint's in a familiar gesture, trying to get him to hold still. "Hmm? Tell me one thing that you want, one thing that can help, even if it's just a little bit, and I'll make it happen."

 _Be around_ , Clint wants to beg, but doesn't. He knows that's the wrong thing to want when Tony needs to feel free to be happy. The old Tony didn't have anything to offer but his time and attention, but this new Tony solves every problem with _things_ , or by going away and working harder, by being Iron Man. Clint tries to think of anything else to ask for, but the only other thing he can come up with is also something that Tony won't like.

"Could we--" he starts to say, then abruptly cuts the words off, but Tony won't let it drop, nods eagerly at him to continue and waits. Patient, like he used to be. "Could we maybe go to church?"

They had gone three times a week for over two years; had gone even when Clint couldn't walk on his own, had gone when sick, had gone without fail, only missing the day Anna went into labor with Lucy. It had been a huge part of their lives and Tony seems more than happy to leave it behind, but Clint doesn't feel the same way, missing the familiarity of it and also worrying that God will be angry that they've stopped going.

That's what _Anna_ would say, at least.

He regrets asking immediately, because Tony stiffens and his expression clouds over. Clint pulls his hands away and puts them over his face, wishing he could disappear completely, because there's just no hiding place secure enough in this new life, no safe place anywhere. Not even with Tony. Not anymore.

After a few moments Tony takes his wrist and tries to pry his hands away, but Clint holds them fast, and finally Tony gives up and wraps his arms around his shoulders instead. "If you..." He sighs and starts again. "I would go for _you_ , if that would make you happy. If that would get you to come out of here, get out into the world again. I'd do it for you."

*******

And he means it, but church is just about the last thing Tony can stand to think about; he'll see and hear Anna all over the place, no matter where he goes, no matter what really happens there, and he's not ready for that yet. That evening he is telling Bruce and Steve about it and trying to decide how he can force himself to go for Clint's sake when Steve steps up, in classic Captain America fashion, to save the day.

"I'll take him," he offers easily. Tony's face is skeptical, and he adds, "If it's about the actual churchgoing, he might agree to go with me. If it's really about having more time with you, then maybe he'll agree to a compromise of doing something else to accomplish that."

"That...might work," Tony agrees, suddenly feeling more hopeful about the whole thing. "Hell, he can have _both_ things--church with you and something else with me. I need to spend more time with him, I think."

"There, see? Things are working out," Bruce says with a grin. "He'll be happier if he can get out and about, I'm sure of it. Clint could never stand to be cooped up for long."

"Please go somewhere super tolerant and liberal," Tony tells Steve. "No fire and brimstone, _please_. He's got enough to get worked up about without anyone giving him additional ideas."

"I'll take care of him," Steve promises.

*******

Clint doesn't want to go anywhere with Steve, not really, but does it anyway. Steve wants him to, and what's more, _Tony_ wants him to, wants Clint to be able to go places, do things without him, to be able to hang out with people that aren't him. There weren't many things Clint could ever do to make Tony happy, so whenever he finds one he does his best to make it happen, even if it's difficult.

Which this definitely is.

So that Sunday he goes out with Steve, who has a nice car and lets him sit in the front seat, and Clint stares at the floor because there is too much to see by looking out the window. Steve turns off the radio, which helps, and doesn't talk much, which is also nice. He doesn't seem to mind if Clint snaps his fingers a little bit, but he tries hard not to, because he knows that's a bad thing, that it bothers people, and just because Steve doesn't say anything about it right _now_ doesn't mean he won't suddenly get mad about it later.

By the time they arrive at the church Clint is completely regretting this whole idea, and all at once it hits him that he doesn't really know Steve at all; he might as well have come here with a complete stranger. He also has no idea where he is or how to get back to Tony, and that idea is more terrifying than anything else so far. He screws his eyes shut and twists the fingers of both hands together in his lap to try to hold them still, but then his foot starts tapping instead and he's breathing way too hard. He can picture Tony telling him to calm down, but Tony isn't here, and when a large hand falls gently on his wrist Clint is afraid to open his eyes, afraid to see if Steve looks angry.

"We don't have to do this," he says, and he sounds kind enough that Clint dares to glance up, and thankfully the expression on his face matches the tone of his voice. "But if you want to try," he adds, "they do a thing here where they have the sermon come through speakers into the lobby area. Sometimes mothers nurse their babies there or take the younger kids out, cause it's quieter but they can still hear the homily. We could sit there, too."

As tempting as that sounds Clint knows that he should be braver, shouldn't want to sit where they take little kids when he's a grown up man. And Steve must be like Tony and able to guess what people are thinking, because he says "Sometimes I like for things to be quiet, too. It's not a bad thing to like."

"Could you..." Clint grits his teeth and clenches his fingers so tightly they feel like they might snap off. "Could you not tell Tony?" he forces out finally. "If he asks, could you just tell him that I did it the right way, so he will be happy?"

It's probably a terrible thing to do; to ask Captain America, of all people, to lie, but Steve doesn't seem bothered at all.

"Of course."

*******

It's one thing for him to be away at work all day, but it's quite another for _Clint_  to be gone, and Tony surprises himself by being the one who panics, for once. Keeping Clint and the baby in his sights, or in the foremost of his thoughts at the very least, is such a habit now that it's almost painful to have him be away, even in the care of someone as trusted as Steve. Bruce comes over to provide some distraction but Tony can barely follow a conversation, constantly messing around with the baby and checking the clock. He's just about to call Steve's phone and demand they return immediately when JARVIS finally announces they are back.

"Hey, how was it?" He affects a normal, cheerful tone and tries not to hug Clint too tightly in relief. "Were the people all nice? Were any of the songs the same?"

"It was good," Clint tells him, fidgety enough that Tony can tell he's still pretty keyed up. "We rode in Steve's car and the church was smaller than Haven's. The pastor was a _man_ ," he adds in a low voice, as if sure Tony will be scandalized by that. "Steve said they can be men, sometimes. Oh, and people just wore everyday clothes. Could _I_ do that, next time?"

Tony smiles at him, and at Steve, who lingers in the doorway. "Of course. You want to go rest while I make us some lunch? Read a book and settle down a bit?" Clint nods eagerly and retreats to his (too big) bedroom while Tony gestures Steve to come all the way inside. "How was it?" he asks. "How was _he_?"

"Scared. But we did it."

*******

For a few weeks things swing slowly upward for awhile. With Natasha, and now Steve, identified as safe people to be around Clint comes out of the apartment more often, even manages a few team dinners. Thor struggles almost comically to turn down his natural volume and exuberance on these occasions, instead coming across as the world's most boisterous and ineffective mime. He has just started to win his friend back over by the time he has to leave for Asgard again.

But the peace doesn't last; good things never seem to last anymore.

The business is going great, as it always has under Pepper's direction, but Tony is feeling the sting of self doubt as no new tech is developed. He has no ideas, no creative juices flowing, and it's the first time in his life that this has ever been the case. He's always struggled with having too many ideas to be able to sit still, yet now there's nothing but frustration. It's as if a big creative wall exists, and he mentally slaps the label "Anna Ford" on the fucker.

She's also in the bedroom between him and Pepper. His mind goes to her at certain sounds or movements, he thinks of things she had liked, words she had whispered. Pepper is understanding and gracious.

"She used you," she insists as he lays unhappily in her arms, trying to push a black haired ghost out of their bed. "She coerced you, used threats to make you do those things. That's called--"

"Don't say it," he warns quickly. "Just....don't."

It's yet another thing that Anna has taken from him. Even dead, the bitch is still around, ruining his life.

*******

Then two terrible things happen.

The first is that Lucy starts crawling, and Tony misses it, away at a meeting. One of the day nannies tells him when he gets home, all smiles, and he is horrified beyond measure. He's become his father, missing everything important, the hired help picking up his slack. He gets drunk that night for the first time since they've been home.

He's away again, this time attempting a romantic dinner out with Pepper, when the second thing happens. This time it's Clint, who's spiraled somehow into a full panic attack, and Steve calls Tony at the restaurant, obviously worried.

"He's got himself wedged between the wall and a cabinet and he's scratched his arms all up--"

" _Goddamnit_!" Tony hisses under his breath, and Pepper is already signaling the waiter for their check.

Steve rattles on. "Bruce wants to sedate him, but I thought we should ask you first. I could also just yank him out of there, but was afraid it might make things worse."

"Don't do _anything_. I'm coming, just leave him alone until I get there."

It seems like the car takes forever to come, and then driving takes forever, and by the time Tony bursts in and JARVIS tells him everyone is gathered down in the archery range he's so desperate and furious that he feels like he might crack apart. All he had wanted was one nice dinner with Pepper, and they had to ruin it by taking Clint there and then letting him wig out.

"I'm so sorry," Steve says immediately, taking in Tony's angry expression. "Everything seemed like it was going fine, and then...well, I'm not even sure exactly _what_ happened."

Tony just glares at him and charges over to where Bruce hovers anxiously with a first aid kit in his arms and Natasha sits on her heels, her hands reaching out placatingly. She glances up at him and moves reluctantly away. "Oh, crap," he whispers. "Oh, Clint."

He's worse than Tony has seen him get in a long time; has only been this bad off one other time, and that panic attack had been maybe the worst in a string of bad ones. Clint's eyes are wide and staring at nothing as he breathes in huge, gasping gulps, rocking back and forth and digging long grooves with his fingernails into his forearms. They're bleeding a lot and there's no way this is ending without medical attention, possibly even some stitches.

"I'm here," Tony says reassuringly, and does his best to squeeze himself into that cramped space, putting his hands on either side of Clint's face. "I'm here, buddy, look at me. It's Tony." Clint's eyes focus on him but he doesn't respond otherwise, tears at his skin even more frantically. This goes on until Tony sighs and twists his head around to murmur "Steve said you had a sedative?" Bruce nods. "Let's use it. He'll need his arms looked at anyway."

Tony pulls himself out and lets Bruce take his place, pressing his palms to the side of his head in frustration and distress as Clint's wheezing is replaced by wordless screams when he sees Bruce advancing toward him with a syringe. Bruce gives the injection and retreats quickly, and thankfully whatever he uses works fast.

*******

Steve carries Clint back to the apartment, Tony fuming the entire way, while Bruce, Natasha, and Pepper follow silently behind.

The night nanny pops out when they enter, her welcoming smile replaced by a look of shock. "Oh my gosh!" she cries, dismayed. "What happened?"

"It's being handled, _Karen_ ," Tony snaps as they file past, not quite sure why he's pissed at her as well.

"Of course, Mr. Stark," the nanny says quickly and Pepper hangs back to talk to her, putting out Tony's fires, like always.

Steve lays Clint down on his bed and Bruce gets to work immediately cleaning the wounds on his arms while Natasha sits down carefully and strokes his hair.

"How did this happen?" Tony demands, glad when Steve flinches. "You're supposed to _watch_ him if you take him somewhere, so how did this _even_ happen? And why on earth would you take him to the range, of all places? Jesus Christ!"

"Natasha and I thought he would like it," Steve offers while Natasha glares at Tony. "That he might be ready to try shooting again."

"Well, you were fucking _wrong_ , weren't you?"

"He got upset," Steve continues, red faced, "but none of the usual ways seemed to calm him down. I honestly have no idea how it all escalated like that. I didn't want to bother you while you were on your date--" Tony scoffs and Steve shrugs helplessly "--but Bruce didn't have any good ideas either, and we couldn't think of what else to do."

Tony shakes his head in disgust and Natasha rises fluidly, glaring some more, and leaves the room, pulling Steve out with her. Bruce keeps working silently, applying gauze pads and medical tape expertly, affixing butterfly bandages to some of the deeper wounds.

"Tony," he says finally.

"Whatever you're going to say-- _don't_. I don't want to hear it right now."

"Tony, something's got to give."

"Shut up, Bruce."

"Something has to change, this isn't working out for Clint. It's not good for him to live like this. He's a wreck, living on the edge of hysteria all the time. It's not healthy."

Tony gets right in Bruce's face, and _that_ is what's not healthy, it's stupid actually, getting confrontational with a man that becomes a Hulk. "He's brain damaged, Bruce, he's not going to _get_ any better. You saw that scan yourself. And I'm not sending him away from here. Not _ever_ , so if that's what you're getting at, then you can go directly to hell."

"I'm _not_ saying that," Bruce answers mildly, pointedly ignoring Tony's proximity and tone, gathering up bits of tape and gauze off the blanket and rolling them into a ball with his hands. "I'm talking about medication. Something daily for anxiety. Something extra to have on hand for times like this. I've been doing some reading, and sometimes even a service animal can be helpful." Tony snorts dismissively but Bruce presses on. "And professional counseling, at the very least. For _both_ of you."

" _No_. You don't get to tell us how to deal with our personal shit, Banner. You just _don't_."

"You were abused, both of you were. You were held prisoner for over two years. The fallout from that doesn't just go away because you want it to."

"Get out," Tony says darkly, his hands fisted. "Get the _fuck_ out of here. _Now_. Right now."

Blessedly, he does, without saying anything else. Tony climbs in bed next to Clint, trying to time his ragged breaths to match Clint's deep, steady breathing. He places a shaking hand on the bright white bandages and tries to tell himself that tomorrow, surely, will be better. It has to be. Eventually things will be better and _stay_ that way.

It's not fair. They had escaped.

It's supposed to be _over_.

*******

When Clint wakes up he still feels tired, his body sluggish and oddly heavy. Something pulls and pinches and he looks down in surprise at his arms, which are both bandaged from wrist to elbow. He doesn't know what happened, but he has been hurt somehow, and his hands fly immediately to his head, to check if there are bandages there as well.

"You're okay." Tony's voice sounds groggy and close by, and Clint, startled, pushes up on his elbows to try and locate him. Tony is laying in Clint's bed next to him and had apparently fallen asleep there, judging by the bedhead and the pillow lines on his face. He puts a hand on Clint's shoulder and gently pulls him back down. "You're scratched up a little," he says, "but you're alright. Everything is fine."

"Okay." Clint eases back onto the bed, still unsettled, but if Tony says things are fine, then that should be good enough for him. He looks around again, confused. "Is it morning?"

"Yeah, technically it is...the most brutal and terribly wee hours of the morning. You went to bed a little earlier than normal last night."

"Oh." He looks at the bandages on his arms and wonders what happened, knows it had to be something bad for Tony to crawl into bed with him. "But everything is really okay?"

"It really is. Everything is completely fine." His voice is as confident as ever, but Tony looks away when he says it.

*******

Tony is happy enough to pretend like it never happened, mostly because he wants to avoid a repeat of his discussion with Bruce, which is what he  _really_ wishes had never happened. He doesn't tell Clint how he came to be all scratched up, and either Clint doesn't question it at all, or he asks Natasha or Steve about it. But he doesn't bring it up to Tony, seems to let it go.

That's all that matters. That they're moving forward. Again.

Tony spends every minute he can with Lucy, watching her crawl, half in wonderment at how amazing she is, half in terror at how fast she's growing, how quickly all these moments are passing whether he's here or not. She's jabbering up a storm now, making all sorts of new sounds. Tony wonders if someday she'll call Pepper "Mama", then feels sick to his stomach, because even language has become a minefield in the aftermath of Anna's reign of terror.

The next time there's a board meeting he doesn't go, skips a different meeting soon after. Pepper takes care of everything and doesn't question him, but she looks worried. She doesn't need to be.

Tony has everything under control. 

*******

Things go to hell on a day when they actually seem to be going smoothly, for once.

They have a group dinner and everyone is sitting in the common area afterward; Tony is talking to Steve about improvements to the jet when Pepper asks if he can help her open a bottle of wine. He hands Lucy off to Bruce to hold while he does so, but when Clint looks up from his conversation with Natasha and sees the scientist with the baby in his arms he comes absolutely unglued.

He leaps to his feet and crosses the room almost in the same instant, so fast that nobody has time to react beyond surprised looks before he snatches Lucy away from Bruce, clutching her to his own chest. "What's wrong?" Bruce asks, confused, as Clint immediately retreats toward Tony.

"What are you _doing_?" Tony takes the crying baby, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

"He had her--he shouldn't--it's not _safe_ \--" Clint's eyes are as wide as saucers and he looks angry and frightened and offended all at the same time.

Then it makes sense, and Bruce just looks resigned and maybe a little hurt, but for Tony it's suddenly the culmination of everything--too many stresses building these last weeks, and the fact that every single person here is trying so damned hard and getting so little in return.

"Pepper, can you...?" He plops the baby into her arms, Lucy screaming louder at the indignity of being passed to yet another person in the last two minutes, and takes Clint roughly by the arm and pulls him out of the room.

" _Enough_." Tony's voice is quiet, but Clint recoils as if struck. " _Enough_ of this now. You're going to have to learn to get along with him, learn to be friendly."

"I _am_!" Clint protests. "But h-h-he shouldn't hold her; he has a monster in him!" He gasps as Tony grabs his shoulders, shakes him once, hard.

" _Stop_ _it_!" Tony hisses. "Bruce isn't going to hurt anyone, and you used to know that. You guys were best friends. Use your brain and _think_ , goddamnit!" Clint is cringing and trying to pull away, and that's suddenly beyond frustrating--for him to play at being the victim when it's Bruce's feelings that got hurt. "Knock it off, Clint!"

His voice is raised and Steve and Natasha come sprinting through the door seconds later. She grabs Tony's right hand at the wrist and bends it sharply until he lets go of Clint.

Tony snarls "What the fuck!" as Steve raises both hands and says "Whoa whoa whoa guys, everyone calm down!" in his best team leader voice.

The second Tony turns loose of him Clint is gone, taking off to God knows where. "JARVIS, keeps tabs on him."

"I hope he doesn't get into the air vents," Steve adds worriedly, and Tony barks a bitter, incredulous laugh at the thought, then gasps in shock when Natasha slaps him across the face.

"Don't you _ever_ laugh at him!"

Tony isn't sure if she's talking about Clint or Steve, and supposes it doesn't even matter. He had forgotten how scary she could be when angry.

"Natasha," Steve warns, "don't make this worse."

"Don't you _dare_ ," she continues icily, and there are furious tears in her eyes, and, okay, that means she's definitely talking about Clint. "It makes me _sick_ , the way he follows you around like a dog and then...and then you speak to him like that. He's been hurt enough, and I swear to God I will fucking murder you in the worst way I know how if you _ever_ do that again."

"Natasha." Steve's voice is quiet but she moves away then, and he puts his arms around her.

Tony blinks in surprise, wondering suddenly if they have been together this whole time and he had just never noticed. Wondering how long those words had been brewing inside her. Wondering just how the hell he became the bad guy all of a sudden.

*******

He's so sure that Clint will be huddled up in his closet that he's halfway to the apartment before he thinks to ask JARVIS for confirmation.

"Agent Barton is in his former living quarters," JARVIS answers smoothly, and Tony tries not to imagine a hint of disapproval in the AI's voice, because that'd just be too much, the icing on top of the world's shittiest cake, if even a glorified computer program is judging him. Tony changes course and heads another floor down.

He hasn't been back here since they returned, and to see Clint sitting there on the couch, just like he used to, looking wary and suspicious, as he had in the beginning of the Avengers, in those dark days after Loki--well, it's jarring, to say the least. Tony starts to walk in, then thinks better of it and knocks on the door frame. It's a token gesture since he's already in the room, but one he makes all the same.

"Hey, buddy. Can I come in?"

Clint just looks at him, leaning away almost imperceptibly as Tony sits down beside him, not looking anxious for once, just sitting with that eerie watchfulness. "I lived here," he says flatly.

"You did."

"These were my things."

"They still are."

"They aren't yours. I picked them out, I bought them for myself."

"Yes." Tony has no idea where this is going, but something about it scares him a little.

"This--" he throws a sweeping gesture toward the room but keeps his eyes locked on Tony's "--is all that's left of the old Clint Barton. There isn't anything else. Not anything _anywhere_."

"Clint."

"He died. Anna killed him. He was everyone's good friend but he's dead. I'm someone different."

"Oh God, _Clint_."

"You brought me here with you," he goes on in that same emotionless tone. "You shouldn't have done that, if you didn't want me here. If you wanted someone else, you shouldn't have brought _me_. Should've just left me where I was." Tony reaches out and Clint carefully, but firmly, pushes his hand away. "I can be a friend to everyone. I'll do the best that I can. But stop.... _stop_ asking me to be somebody else. I don't have to remember the things he did. I don't have to wear his clothes. I don't have to like or want to do all the things he did. I don't have to _be_ him if I don't _want_ to."

"You're right. You _are_. I'm sorry."

But he isn't done. "Anna--" he practically sobs her name, and Tony's eyes also fill with tears, because, God, Clint's _still_ mourning her, even after all this time "--Anna wasn't a good person. Never was. I wanted her to love me, I wanted that so much, but she never did, never would, because I was only there so she could keep _you_."

"Clint--" Tony starts again but freezes at his next words.

"And that wasn't my fault."

"Of course it wasn't," he answers automatically, but he's afraid, is fucking terrified, because something is breaking. It's actually something that has been broken for ages, but only now it's finally crumbling apart.

"You shouldn't have stayed for me. I wouldn't want you to. The old Clint wouldn't want you to either. You should have gotten away. Maybe I should have died there. Sometimes I think...maybe that would have been better."

"No. Don't _ever_ , don't you _ever_ say that." He takes Clint's hands into his own then, grips them tightly. "If you hadn't been there, it would've been me they 'cured'. She told me that, the very first day, that she would do it. But you happened to be there, had come along just to make sure nothing happened, and fuck it, something _did_ , and neither of us saw it coming. Then...after...well, I couldn't leave you there, when you'd gotten hurt because of me. And I'd seen what happened to you and I knew she'd have them do the same to me. I thought we could bide our time, try to wait it out. I never dreamed it'd take as long to get out as it did. You were hurt, and I was scared and worried and ashamed...and still am...every goddamned day."

Clint sobs silently into his hands, and maybe Tony cries a little too, as he goes on. "She only ever hurt you--then, and afterwards--to get to me. And you're right, that wasn't your fault. And...it wasn't mine either."

He doesn't know if he really believes that, but he _wants_ to. Wants to be able to believe it. He says it again, trying it on. "It wasn't my fault. It was _hers_. Only hers. She was mean, and she was crazy, and she hurt us both for reasons all her own. We'll never know what they were. We can only try to get by with what we have left, try to move on and leave her behind."

Clint leans in suddenly, and Tony's arms wrap around him in relief, because _this_ is right, this is how it's supposed to be between them. _Now_ , anyway. The way it's supposed to be between the Tony and Clint that walked out of that hellhole.

"How?" Clint asks sadly. " _How_ do we?"

"There are things we can do, that we can try," Tony tells him, thinking of what Bruce had said weeks before. "I thought maybe we didn't need to, but I suppose even geniuses don't know everything." He knuckles some tears away from his eyes and nudges Clint, who smiles a bit. "But we'll figure it out. All of us together."

Clint nods. "Steve. Bruce. Thor. Natasha." He hesitates, then adds quietly, "Pepper."

"And _you_ ," Tony says emphatically.

"And you, too."

 

 


End file.
